ESE  SHIFTING  SCENES 


CHAELES  BDiNVARD   RUSSELL 


THESE  SHIFTING  SCENES 


THESE  SHIFTING 

SCENES 


BY 

CHARLES  EDWARD  RUSSELL 


HODDER  &  STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1914 
By  George  H.  Doran  Company 


THE  QUINN  A  BOOEN   CO.    PRESS 
RAHWAY,  N.  i. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAQB 

I.    Old  Days  with  the  Tramp  Printers    ....  1 

II.    The  Case  of  William  Heilwagnee  .       .       .       .       .  18 

III.  The  Man  Out  of  Work 31 

IV.  The  Streets  and  the  Island,  the  Island  and  the 

Streets 47 

V.    Lessons  in  Geography  and  in  Other  Useful  Studies      60 

VI.    The  Haymarket  and  Afterward 80 

VII.    Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888      .       .       ,  111 

VIII.    Where  Was  the  Danmark? 132 

IX.    The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 146 

X.    The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending    ....  170 

XI.    The  Clinic  That  Went  Wrong 192 

XII.    How  Harrison  Was  Nominated  at  Minneapolis  in 

1892 213 

XIII.  How  Cleveland  Was  Nominated  in  1892    .       .       .  227 

XIV.  Travels  with  the  Cholera  Fleet 245 

XV.    Tales  of  a  City  Room  Caliph  .       .       .       .       .       .  258 

XVI.    The  Art  op  Reporting 285 


290943 


THESE  SHIFTING  SCENES 


•      » 


'.',•/. 

•'...-/>. 


OLD  DAYS  WITH  THE  TRAMP  PRINTERS 

On  my  way  home  in  the  summer  dawns  from  my  father's 
newspaper  office,  I  was  sometimes  aware  at  the  railroad 
crossing  of  strange  figures  clambering  down  from  pass- 
ing freight  cars,  or  maybe  dodging  furtively  along  the 
tracks.  These,  with  a  reluctance  I  suppose  to  spring  in 
part  from  the  cheerful  memories  of  youth,  I  concede  to 
have  been  of  the  order  of  tramps.  In  one  corner  of  my 
mind  I  knew  even  then  that  they  were  tramps;  but  after 
a  time  they  seemed  far  otherwise  to  me.  Dirty,  unkempt, 
always  vagabonds,  sometimes  in  sorry  rags  of  raiment  and 
sometimes  too  plainly  marred  and  scored  by  drink  and 
wild  living,  they  were  the  most  picturesque,  and,  on  the 
whole,  the  most  interesting  tatterdemalions  that  have 
moved  across  my  range  of  vision.  Long  ago  the  old  race 
of  journeyman  newspaper  printers  perished  from  the 
earth:  regrettably,  I  must  think,  for  to  life  in  small  towns 
their  comings  and  goings  gave  a  peculiar  relish  not  to  be 
supplied,  certainly,  by  the  type-setting  machine  before 
which  they  vanished.  Of  their  own  kind  they  were;  most 
restless  of  the  birds  of  passage,  driven  from  town  to  town 
by  what  seemed  a  goading  frenzy  for  travel;  and  yet  the 
able  masters  of  a  noble  art,  the  very  kings  of  their  handi- 
craft. About  many  western  towns  must  still  linger  the 
fragrant  traditions  of  their  achievements,  their  marvelous 
skill    and    speed    in    setting    type,    or    their    sure    touch 

1 


s 


••'"*•*':  ^hese  Shifting  Scenes 

on  a  difficult  display  advertisement,  their  illimitable 
capacity  for  strong  drink  and  the  unmatchable  force  of 
their  profanity,  culled  from  the  choice  products  of  many 
climes. 

In  travel  their  accustomed  mode  was  by  box  freight 
cars  ("  side-door  palace  cars  "  in  the  phrase  of  their  kind) 
and  that  is  why  my  homeward  path  so  often  crossed  theirs 
at  the  railroad  tracks;  in  that  convenient  hour  of  dim 
light  they  were  emerging  from  a  freight  train  or  seeking 
to  board  one;  for  I  suppose  I  hardly  need  to  explain  that 
their  transit  was  invariably  without  the  consent  or  knowl- 
edge of  the  railroad  authorities.  In  our  latitude  their 
migrations  began  in  the  spring,  when  nights  were  growing 
warm,  and  ended  at  a  safe  margin  before  the  first  snow, 
by  which  time  the  freight  trains  had  borne  them  usually 
southward;  though  sometimes  they  hibernated  in  New 
York.  Full  men  they  were  by  reading  and  travel;  they 
knew  every  corner  of  the  continent,  they  knew  all  news- 
papers and  the  characteristics  thereof;  and  for  general 
information  on  current  topics  they  had  no  equals.  The 
printer  is  always  intelligent  and  ready-minded;  experi- 
ence and  changing  observation  had  schooled  these  to  a 
kind  of  wisdom,  and  the  dangers  of  their  life  set  them 
apart  and  gave  to  even  their  rags  the  dignity  of  ro- 
mance. Moreover,  they  were  often  possessed  of  the  liter- 
ary sense,  of  an  excellent  taste,  and  of  the  ready  address 
of  men  of  the  world.  I  have  seen  one  of  them,  but  newly 
come  from  a  freight  car,  sit  in  his  soiled  and  scanty  attire 
at  the  telegraph  editor's  desk  and  work  with  such  skill,  pre- 
cision, and  speed  as  shamed  us  all  and  taught  us  our 
business.  And  now  I  recall  a  seedy  scalawag,  odorous 
of  beer  and  bad  tobacco,  whose  pockets  were  perennially 
empty  of  coin,  but  filled  with  scraps  of  poetry,  which  he 

2 


Old  Days  with  the  Tramp  Printers 

delightedly  collected,  and  at  a  certain  stage  of  his  liba- 
tions would  recite  with  good  voice  and  good  discretion. 
And  there  was  another  that  of  nights,  when  the  work  was 
done,  was  wont  to  entertain  us  with  imitations  of  eminent 
actors  in  Shakespearean  roles,  and  then  "  jeff  "  for  drinks 
on  the  corner  of  an  old  imposing  stone.  "  Jeff  " — alas  the 
day!  And  now  I  suppose  even  that  cheerful  but  wicked 
custom  has  fallen  from  its  ancient  seat  among  the  delights 
of  men! 

Without  exception  these  visitors  were  capable  of  earn- 
ing good  incomes  and  without  exception  they  were  chron- 
ically destitute.  Their  practice  was  to  enter  a  town,  ob- 
tain a  few  days*  work  as  "  subs  *'  (substitute  compositors) 
in  some  newspaper  office,  cash  their  *'  strings,"  become  in- 
toxicated, spend  what  they  had  made  and  speed  (at  the 
railroad  company's  sole  expense)  to  their  next  place  of 
alighting.  Employment  they  were  always  sure  of  wher- 
ever they  condescended  to  ask  for  it,  and  being  natural 
philosophers,  alternately  stoic  and  epicurean,  they  lived 
without  care  and,  from  their  own  point  of  view,  exceed- 
ingly well.  The  nomad  in  them  was  irradicable.  Once, 
I  remember,  we  caught  one  of  them  young,  as  Dr.  John- 
son says  of  Scotchmen,  and  thought  to  do  much  with  him, 
for  we  offered  him  editorial  positions  and  what  we  were 
pleased  to  call  a  career.  For  a  time  these  seemed  to 
promise  well.  Bathed,  shaved,  and  garbed,  even  to  an 
imaccustomed  collar  and  a  gorgeous  necktie,  in  the  habili- 
ments of  civilized  man,  for  three  days  he  whom  we  would 
fain  lure  from  vagabondia  stalked  gloomily  the  streets 
along,  eyeing  with  manifest  disfavor  his  image  as  reflected 
in  store  windows.  At  the  end  of  which  time  he  sold  his 
new  clothes  for  three  dollars,  donned  his  rags,  which  with 
rare  forethought  he  had  hidden  under  a  lumber  pile,  and  on 

3 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

the  next  freight  train  faded  from  among  us.  Him  we 
saw  no  more  until  that  time  next  year.  Then,  after  the 
manner  of  his  kind,  his  late  experience  with  his  benefactors 
had  become  as  if  it  had  not  been,  and  entailed  no  more 
of  obligation;  if,  indeed,  they  were  benefactors  otherwise 
than  in  their  own  minds,  as  to  which  I  own  a  reasonable 
doubt. 

Along  the  front  of  my  father's  office  and  about  a  foot 
from  the  ground  was  a  broad  ledge  whereof  the  architec- 
tural purpose  was  and  remains  with  me  mysterious  but 
of  which  the  practical  use  was  toward  the  summer  repose 
of  weary  printers.  We  were  a  morning  paper,  and  com- 
position began  with  us  at  the  somewhat  unusual  hour  of 
half-past  two  in  the  afternoon.  Before  twelve  o'clock 
the  printers  were  wont  to  appear  to  distribute  type  for 
the  day's  setting,  an  operation  called  in  the  trade  **  getting 
in  their  cases."  Between  the  time  when  their  cases  were 
filled  and  half-past  two  they  had  usually  some  space  of 
leisure,  which,  in  fair  weather,  they  passed  upon  the  ledge, 
for  the  office  stood  on  the  shady  side  of  the  street.  Then 
in  the  group's  center  could  be  seen  one  of  my  friends 
from  the  freight  cars  sitting  in  state  as  became  royalty, 
grave,  impassive,  taciturn,  gazing  straight  before  him, 
wrapped  in  serious  thought.  To  him  behold  on  either  side 
three  or  four  of  the  local  contingent,  the  pillars  of  our 
regular  force,  turning  a  respectful  attention  that  they  might 
hear  what  wisdom  should  chance  to  fall  from  august  lips. 
He  was  dirty  and  they  were  clean;  he  was  ragged  and 
they  were  whole;  he  was  disreputable  and  disorderly  and 
they  were  of  the  straight  walk.  But  lo,  how  honor  peereth 
in  the  meanest  habit!  This  frowsy  person  had  traveled, 
he  had  lived  in  New  York,  in  a  large  familiar  way  he 
talked  of  Ann  Street  and  Park  Row,  he  had  seen  cities 

4 


Old  Days  with  the  Tramp  Printers 

of  men  and  manners,  and  of  his  vocation  he  was  marvel- 
ously  an  expert,  a  magician  of  the  types  that  made  them 
fly  under  the  bewildering  compulsion  of  his  grimy  hand. 

On  the  ledge  the  group  feels  an  impulse  to  silence, 
waiting  for  greatness  to  speak  first.  There  has  been  talk 
of  New  York,  the  favorite  topic;  New  York,  the  newspaper 
Mecca  of  those  that  dared;  New  York,  the  far  away 
shrine  of  perfect  printing,  the  wonderful  metropolis,  in  the 
mists  of  imagination  looming  great  and  strange. 

"  Is  old  Bill  Smith  still  night  editor  on  the  Herald?  " 
one  ventures  at  last,  willing  to  show  a  familiarity  with 
matters  metropolitan. 

The  great  man  shifts  his  tobacco,  turns  slowly,  and  for 
an  instant,  upon  his  questioner  a  look  of  gentle  pity  as  of 
one  very  patient  with  the  ignorance  about  him,  and  once 
more  gazes  straight  to  the  fore.  Then  from  the  oracle  a 
solemn  voice: 

**  Old  Bill  Smith's  been  dead  these  two  years." 

At  which  silence  reigns  again. 

But  sometimes  the  great  man,  mellowing  with  obvious 
homage  or  much  beer,  condescends  to  curse  heartily  the 
town,  the  office,  and  the  type  used  therein  (which  is  large 
and  unprofitable  to  printers),  and  being  thus  relieved  in 
mind,  to  be  led  into  the  fields  reminiscent  wherein  his 
discourse  is  worth  any  man's  hearing.  He  has  had  some 
characteristic  experience  with  Horace  Greeley,  he  has  had 
those  wonderful  hieroglyphs  for  copy,  he  has  chatted  for 
moments  with  Charles  A.  Dana,  he  has  seen  the  younger 
Bennett  minutely  directing  his  own  composing  room,  he 
has  picked  up  in  newspaper  offices  that  curious,  inside, 
actual  history  of  events  that  is  always  so  different  from 
the  printed  and  accepted  records.  He  knows  of  John 
Reid's  momentous  activities  on  election  night  of  1876,  he 

5 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

knows  the  swift  moves  that  then  overturned  the  verdict 
of  the  ballot  boxes ;  he  knows  why  John  Kelly  hated  Tilden ; 
he  knows  why  Conkling  hated  Blaine ;  his  talk  plays  lightly 
and  without  ceremony  around  all  the  colossal  figures  of 
the  day.  About  his  memory  float  the  fag-ends  of  a  thou- 
sand stories  caught  from  the  full  streams  of  newspaper 
office  gossip.  He  has  watched  old  Dr.  Woods  "  make  up  *' 
the  New  York  Sun;  he  has  gathered  some  secrets  of  that 
strange  and  forgotten  wizard.  He  has  seen  Samuel  Medill 
in  the  composing  room  of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  or  again, 
Wilbur  F.  Storey  in  the  office  of  the  old  Chicago  Times 
cursing  until  everything  turned  blue.  With  keen  eyes  and 
a  mind  acute  to  such  impressions  he  has  observed  and 
noted  the  peculiarities  of  a  thousand  famous  men.  He 
has  worked  in  the  government  printing  office  in  Washing- 
ton; he  has  set  up  the  speeches  of  John  Logan;  he  has 
made  the  corrections  in  the  president's  message.  He  has 
been  everywhere,  seen  everything,  and  once  started  to  talk 
his  language  is  a  marvel  of  authoritative  expression.  For 
he  wastes  no  word;  he  deals  only  with  the  very  heart  of 
speech. 

His  way  of  life  has,  too,  a  certain  lawlessness,  fascinat- 
ing, I  fear,  to  us  that  dwell  placidly  in  these  rural  regions. 
From  ocean  to  ocean,  from  Canada  to  Mexico,  he  travels, 
yet  he  pays  no  fare,  he  troubles  himself  naught  with  tickets 
nor  with  baggage.  Sometimes  he  rides  on  a  pile  of  lumber, 
sometimes  in  an  empty  cattle  car,  sometimes  crouched  in 
imminent  peril  on  the  bumpers.  He  is  above  the  ordinary 
considerations  of  fear  as  of  prudence.  He  has  ridden 
hundreds  of  miles  on  the  trucks  of  an  express  train,  cling- 
ing with  hands  and  very  finger-nails,  choking  in  clouds 
of  dust,  and  maddened  by  the  frightful  din,  the  grinding 
wheels  two  inches  from  his  nose,  horrible  death  plucking 

6 


Old  Days  with  the  Tramp  Printers 

him  by  the  shoulder.  He  has  clambered  in  the  dark  over 
swiftly  moving  freight  trains,  dodging  irate  and  armed 
brakemen.  He  has  been  shot  at  and  has  fought  at  bay 
for  his  life;  he  has  narrowly  grazed  suffocation  in  a  car- 
load of  grain.  Whenever,  his  "  string  '*  being  cashed,  he 
makes  his  exit  from  any  town  he  takes  his  life  in  his 
hand,  he  goes  hob  and  nob  with  death.  Yet  care  for  these 
vicissitudes  he  has  none,  nor  for  the  morrow.  To  him  the 
chances  are  no  longer  haggard;  he  has  summed  all  life  in 
this,  that  he  may  gratify  his  insatiable  appetite  for  change. 

Of  this  tribe  was  one  whose  real  name  had  been  lost 
in  years  of  continental  wandering  but  was  known  to  us 
as  **  Scotty,'*  for  whose  annual  visit  we  looked  as  for  the 
coming  of  spring.  He  was  past  fifty,  a  sandy  man  gone 
gray,  and  in  despite  of  much  liquor  and  hard  living  sin- 
gularly active  and  even  athletic;  short,  squat,  and  power- 
ful. He  must  have  begun  with  a  good  education,  for  he 
knew  the  classics  and  once  corrected  a  local  clergyman 
in  a  quotation  from  the  iEneid,  of  which  this  ragged  person 
was  genuinely  fond.  Of  his  origin  as  of  his  name  he 
was  reticent,  but  it  appeared  he  had  served  in  a  Northern 
regiment  in  the  Civil  War  and  had  won  distinction,  which 
he  had  thrown  away  for  drink.  I  can  well  understand  that 
his  dauntless  courage  and  resourceful  mind  must  have  made 
him  a  valuable  soldier.  He  had  a  lieutenancy  and  was 
on  the  road  to  a  command  when  in  some  irremediable  way 
his  cups  tripped  him.  Later  he  was  a  military  telegraph 
operator,  I  think  likely  under  another  name.  The  war 
over,  the  joys  of  travel  claimed  him,  and  when  I  knew 
him  he  was  a  confirmed  wanderer  and  periodical  inebriate. 

I  was  nineteen  years  old,  an  apprentice  telegraph  editor 
trying  to  learn  the  business  from  the  bottom,  and  with 
some  impulse  of  pity  or  sympathy  he  chose  to  take  an 

7 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

interest  in  me,  an  attention  he  bestowed  upon  few.  01 
an  evening  when  he  happened  to  be  sober  and  not  working 
he  was  wont  to  lounge  into  my  office  and  sit  with  me  and 
show  me  the  secrets  of  the  copyreader's  art,  in  which  he 
was  particularly  adept,  having  been  schooled  and  seasoned 
under  many  masters.  For  the  difficulties  of  head  writing 
he  had  a  marvelous  facility  and  I  used  to  wonder  at  a 
man  that  had  such  command  over  apt,  pithy,  and  forceful 
expressions  and  had  made  for  his  own  advantage  so  little 
use  of  it.  In  time  he  became  communicative  and  bit  bj; 
bit  I  gathered  the  thread  of  his  adventures. 

After  the  war  he  had  felt  an  odd  desire  to  return  tc 
the  South  and  for  years  he  passed  or  was  buffeted  from 
one  Southern  city  to  another,  the  victim  usually  of  some 
misadventure.  He  had  shared  in  the  establishing  of  the 
carpet-bag  government  of  South  Carolina  and  had  nar- 
rowly escaped  shooting  by  the  disaffected  populace.  He 
had  tried  to  edit  a  newspaper  in  Mississippi  and  some 
too  candid  criticism  of  local  society  having  aroused  a 
prejudice  against  him  he  approached  his  office  one  daj! 
to  find  it  possessed  by  a  mob  that  had  thoughtfully  broughl 
a  rope  to  hang  him.  In  good  time  he  dodged  into  a  corn- 
field where  he  lay  all  day,  having  the  rare  pleasure  oi 
hearing  discussed  the  exact  manner  of  his  killing  if  he 
should  be  taken.  He  had  known  that  eccentric  genius. 
Will  H.  Kernan,  and  had  set  type  on  the  Ohalona  States, 
Once  he  became  sole  compositor,  proof  reader,  and  assistani 
to  a  man  that  for  prudential  reasons  published  a  newspapei 
from  a  flat-boat  moored  in  the  Mississippi  River  betweer 
two  states.  The  papers  when  printed  were  ferried  ashore 
at  night  and,  I  think,  smuggled  into  the  post-office.  Some 
of  the  editor's  remarks  having  reached  an  unendurable 
frankness,  offended  fathers  and  brothers  gathered  one  day 

8 


Old  Days  with  the  Tramp  Printers 

on  opposite  banks  of  the  river  and  took  pot  shots  at  the 
boat  and  its  occupants.  The  editor  ensconced  in  the  bow 
with  two  rifles  and  some  revolvers  answered  in  kind  while 
Scotty  tried  to  get  below  the  water  line,  and  well-aimed 
shots  came  through  the  deck  house.  Some  indications  of 
a  long  siege  appearing  on  shore,  where  a  rope  hung  sug- 
gestively from  a  tree-limb,  the  editor  cut  the  cable  at  night 
and  drifted  out  of  range. 

Scotty 's  next  appearance  was  in  New  Orleans,  where 
he  had  been  a  witness  of  the  uprising  that  drove  out  the 
carpet-baggers  and  where  he  had  even  held  office,  being 
for  twenty-four  hours  the  custodian  of  some  thousands  of 
dollars  of  the  public  funds.  He  escaped  by  night  from 
New  Orleans  and  made  his  way  to  Texas,  where  he  had 
mind  to  turn  rancher,  but  stopped  on  the  way  to  buy  a 
weekly  newspaper,  for  five  dollars  in  gold  and  an  unused 
ticket  to  Waco.  He  found  the  bargain  dear,  for  the  enter- 
prise was  plastered  with  mortgages  and  the  office  beset  by 
angry  creditors;  and  he  left  by  the  back  door,  traveling 
(by  freight)  to  Texarkana.  There  he  managed  a  shooting 
gallery  for  a  man  that  was  compelled  by  circumstances 
over  which  he  lacked  control  to  a  hurried  departure  from 
town,  whither  he  never  returned.  Scotty  found  the  business 
uncongenial,  bequeathed  it  without  compensation  to  an  ex- 
hilarated stranger,  and  betook  himself  to  the  printer's 
case  and  freight  trains  whereby  he  worked  gradually  and 
gratefully  Northward. 

At  the  time  of  my  acquaintance  with  him  he  had  estab- 
lished a  circuit  from  which  he  never  varied  except  that 
once  instead  of  giving  his  patronage  to  the  railroads  he 
stole  a  skiff  and  floated  down  the  Mississippi  to  New 
Orleans,  a  place  he  greatly  esteemed  as  a  winter  resort. 
On  the  first  of  March  of  every  year  he  started  for  Mobile; 

9 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

thence  with  the  spring  he  moved  upon  Atlanta^  and  so  by 
way  of  Washington  to  New  York,  which  he  held  it  to  be 
his  Christian  duty  to  see  every  year  and  of  which  he  knew 
every  nook  and  corner.  As  summer  came  on  he  fared 
toward  the  golden  Northwest,  where,  he  said,  the  air 
was  better  for  his  lungs.  Once,  in  a  fit  of  athletic  en- 
thusiasm, he  had  undertaken  to  walk,  sleeping  of  nights 
in  schoolhouses  and  barns;  but  he  said  the  silence  and 
loneliness  of  the  country  upset  his  nerves,  the  singing  of 
the  crickets  made  him  hysterical,  and  he  was  brought  to 
perceive  the  true  value  of  the  railroad  system  of  the  United 
States,  which  enabled  the  deserving  to  be  transported  with- 
out exertion  and  without  expense. 

It  was  impossible  not  to  like  this  rascal,  notwithstanding 
his  life,  which  no  doubt  traversed  all  principles  of  ethics 
and  sound  economics.  Moreover  there  were  times,  I  must 
needs  confess,  when  the  practitioners  of  sound  economics 
and  the  rest  stood  a  little  abashed  in  his  frayed  and  dis- 
reputable presence.  An  old  woman  sold  apples  and  lem- 
onade under  the  stairs  near  the  office  and  of  her  he  was 
accustomed  to  make  daily  purchases — if  so  be  he  had  funds. 
None  of  us  ever  thought  about  her;  she  was  like  the  stair- 
way, she  had  always  been  there  and  always  would  be; 
but  Scotty  was  invariably  attentive  to  her.  Passing  to  get 
a  drink  he  would  stop  to  ask  about  her  rheumatism  or  about 
her  son.  We  never  knew  she  had  rheumatism  or  a  son 
until  we  learned  of  both  through  him.  The  son,  it  seemed, 
had  turned  out  badly  and  was  in  a  San  Francisco  hospital. 
And  then  he  would  buy  of  her  things  he  did  not  want  and 
advise  her  as  to  what  was  good  for  rheumatism  and  tell 
her  to  cheer  up,  she  had  plenty  of  good  friends,  and  drop 
a  quarter,  maybe,  into  an  apple  basket.  Similarly  he  in- 
terested himself  in  a  business  office  clerk  that  had  weak 

10 


Old  Days  with  the  Tramp  Printers 

lungs^  and  would  tell  him  how  to  make  herb  tea  and 
poultices  for  his  chest,  and  caution  him  solemnly  against 
drink  and  late  hours  and  bad  company.  And  perhaps  that 
night  one  of  us  must  needs  intercede  to  get  this  sage  coun- 
selor out  of  the  police  station.  When  he  was  sober  he  could 
discourse  in  choice  and  polished  diction  and  when  drunk 
he  swore  like  a  steamboat  mate.  I  had  reason  to  believe 
from  some  of  his  remarks  that,,  emulating  Jim  Bludsoe, 
he  had  one  wife  in  Memphis  and  another  in  Cincinnati  and 
he  was  afraid  to  go  near  either.  Altogether  a  sorry  hero, 
I  fear;  and  so  much  liked  among  us  that  annually  his 
departure  left  the  composing  room  for  a  day  or  two  visibly 
depressed.  Like  the  rest  of  his  order  he  invariably  fared 
upon  his  way  penniless  and  the  worse  for  his  habits;  and 
also  like  the  rest  he  looked  with  unconcealed  disfavor  upon 
everything  outside  of  New  York.  I  cannot  remember,  by 
the  bye,  that  I  ever  knew  him  or  any  of  the  others  to  laugh 
or  be  moved  to  any  mirth ;  doubtless  being  philosophers  and 
old  travelers  they  were  above  such  weakness. 

If  he  had  been  without  other  sign  of  honor  in  our 
office,  that  he  was  allowed  an  individual  slug  with  his 
name  cast  upon  it  would  speak  sufficiently  of  distinction; 
for  while  our  establishment  was  small  we  had  pride  in  the 
thought  that  it  was  rigidly  regular.  To  those  whose  pitiable 
ways  of  life  have  never  included  education  in  a  printing 
office  I  concede  here  the  explanation  that  the  kind  of  slug 
I  refer  to  is  merely  the  cast  number  that  a  compositor 
places  at  the  head  of  the  type  he  has  set  to  identify  his 
product.  Beginning  at  the  far  end  of  the  room,  the  first 
compositor  used  **  Slug  One,"  and  thus  in  sequence  to  the 
door.  Within  the  hours  of  composition  even  the  best  known 
among  us  was  seldom  summoned  by  his  name,  nor  other- 
wise than  by  the  number  of  the  slug  he  used.     Thus  at 

11 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

intervals  the  silence  of  the  place  would  be  pierced  by  the 
foreman's  shrill  cry: 

"  Who's  setting  on  Slug  Eight?  Well,  he  wants  to  come 
here  and  close  up  his  matter  on  the  bank."    Or 

"  Slug  Five !  Put  a  three-em  dash  after  that  take  you 
got." 

Or  belike,  one  moved  to  jocoserie  would  declaim: 

"  What  gentleman  is  composing  this  evening  under  Slug 
Ten?  Will  he  oblige  by  performing  his  duties  on  these 
market  corrections  ?  " 

In  no  such  level  of  anonymity  moved  Scotty.  Promptly 
upon  his  vernal  appearance  the  galley  boy  from  their  winter 
retreat  brought  out  the  slugs  marked  **  Scotty  " ;  promptly 
upon  the  autumnal  flitting  the  galley  boy  put  them  away. 

This  galley  boy,  incidentally,  was  a  child  of  evil  for 
whom  I  confidently  predicted  a  career  of  crime  ending 
upon  the  gallows  and  who  seemed  bent  upon  making  his 
ancient  title  of  printer's  devil  not  merely  appropriate  but 
necessary.  I  saw  him  two  years  ago  in  a  Western  city,  "  a 
sober  man  among  his  boys,"  and  was  somewhat  astonished 
to  find  that  in  his  case  also  prophecy  had  been  but  vain. 
In  the  days  of  his  apprenticeship  he  sought  to  improve  the 
historical  reputation  of  Herod  and  Pharaoh  by  a  series  of 
pranks  and  practical  jests  that  strained  even  the  phenom- 
enal patience  of  my  father.  On  one  occasion  from  sheer 
mischief  he  mislaid  for  a  precious  hour  part  of  a  great 
speech  by  Roscoe  Conkling,  then  coming  by  wire;  and  on 
another,  when  in  the  press  room  the  old  Cottrell  and  Bab- 
cock  was  pounding  away  at  full  tilt  on  the  edition,  he  threw 
the  mailing  clerk's  paste  brush  in  the  air  to  see  if  he  could 
make  it  alight  upon  the  shafting.  It  fell  upon  the  bed  of 
the  press,  landed  on  the  chief  local  story,  slid  under  the  big 
cylinder,  ruined  half  a  column  of  good  type,  and  spoiled  a 

12 


Old  Days  with  the  Tramp  Printers 

piece  of  writing  that  was  the  pride  of  the  city  editor's  young 
heart;  I  being  the  city  editor.  But  even  this  son  of  Belial 
had  nothing  but  respect  for  Scotty. 

In  one  way  he  was  worth  it  all^  for  as  a  craftsman  he 
was  a  master  hand.  He  was  not  only  fast,  which  was  not 
in  our  shop  so  phenomenal,  for  Tom  Dermoody  of  our 
regular  force  had  won  a  prize  in  a  famous  speed  contest, 
but  he  was  accurate  and  able.  He  could  set  tabular  matter 
so  that  it  would  infallibly  justify,  and  he  could  set  adver- 
tisements in  a  way  to  delight  the  heart  of  any  artist.  Once 
he  lingered  among  us  until  election  time,  which  was  an 
unusual  benefaction  on  his  part.  Our  election  tables,  show- 
ing how  many  votes  had  been  cast  for  each  candidate  from 
governor  to  constable,  were  the  mechanical  glory  of  the 
office.  Our  custom  was  to  set  them  in  advance,  with  leaders 
or  blanks  in  the  places  of  the  figures,  these  to  be  supplied 
on  receipt  of  the  returns  on  the  night  of  the  election.  When 
this  arrangement,  sanctified  by  an  ancient  convention,  was 
explained  to  Scotty  he  regarded  it  but  lightly. 

"  You  leave  this  to  me,'*  he  said.  On  election  night  he 
called  off  Gus  Brooks,  one  of  our  local  talent,  and  the 
two,  dividing  the  work  under  Scotty 's  direction,  produced 
a  marvel  of  a  table  that  Scotty  put  into  the  forms  with 
his  own  hands,  absolutely  perfect. 

After  which  he  stood  at  the  stone  until  daylight,  j  effing 
for  dupes.* 

He  was  the  perfect  type  of  his  class,  able,  irresponsible, 
eager  to  get  money,  and  unable  to  keep  any  of  it. 

"  Earnestly  he  sogers  over  this  and  that, 
All  the  time  his  eye  is  peeled  on  the  hook  for  phat." 

*  Duplicate  proofs  of  the  matter  set  up,  showing  what  each  com- 
positor had  set.  As  the  compositors  were  paid  on  these  they  were 
the  equivalent  of  money. 

13 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

And  to  think  that  now  there  is  no  phat^  no  copy  hook 
worth  talking  about,  no  strings,  no  bursts  of  speed,  no 
achievements  like  those  of  Old  Bill  Lindsay,  the  copy 
cutter  of  the  New  York  Herald,  who  in  the  late  rush  mo- 
ments would  cut  a  column  story  into  takes  of  two  lines 
each!  No  more  picturesque  lying  about  the  string  I  set 
the  last  week  I  had  the  markets  on  the  Dubuque  Times, 
no  more  musty  old  composing  rooms,  redolent  of  tobacco 
and  ancient  pipes !  A  printer  turned  mechanic  and  setting 
type  by  playing  on  keys  like  a  typewriter,  the  composing 
room  lined  with  great  clinking,  clattering  machines,  the 
days  of  artistry  and  romance  so  far  gone  that  they  are 
already  legendary!  Alas,  the  changes!  Where  in  such 
times  would  a  Scotty  fit,  came  he  back  to  life? 

As  with  his  fellows,  when  this  philosopher  talked  the 
topic  he  most  did  love  it  was  always  New  York,  whereto  I 
was  a  rapt  and  joyous  listener.  The  night  being  done,  the 
work  over,  the  old  single  cylinder  thundering  away  in  the 
press  room,  the  morning  visible  through  dirty  window  panes, 
he  would  come  into  my  room  and  sit,  sometimes  silent, 
sometimes  moved  to  long  flights  of  descriptive  eloquence 
about  his  favorite  city.  He  would  tip  back  in  his  chair, 
his  feet  sociably  resting  on  my  flat-topped  desk,  his  short 
stout  legs  crossed  in  comfort,  a  corn-cob  pipe  protruding 
from  the  grizzled  stubble  of  his  round  face,  a  glass  of 
beer  within  reach,  and  thus  at  ease  his  talk  would  run 
on  for  hours.  Toward  the  ordinary  topics  of  common- 
place men  he  naaintained  a  blase  indifference,  declining  to 
descend  to  turgid  levels;  but  when  he  spoke  of  New  York 
his  blue  eyes  lighted,  his  face  for  all  its  disfigurements 
revealed  a  genuine  animation.  For  the  newspaper  business 
as  conducted  elsewhere  than  in  the  metropolis  he  enter- 
tained only  contempt;  all  editors  except  New  York  editors 

14 


Old  Days  with  the  Tramp  Printers 

were  (to  use  a  liberal  translation)  persons  of  quite  inferior 
intellect  and  no  consideration.  In  New  York  alone  was  the 
true  art  known  and  practiced. 

"  Did  you  ever  see  a  good  head  line  written  outside  of 
New  York  ?  "  he  would  say.  **  Now  tell  me^  did  you  ?  Well, 
neither  did  anybody  else.  And  look  at  the  way  they  dish 
up  their  stuff  there ;  it  isn't  newspaper  writing,  it's  litera- 
ture. Read  that  now;  isn't  that  literature?  Well,  I  told 
you.  Now  that  stuff  is  all  written  by  artists,  by  the  best 
writers  in  the  world.  Boston?  Boston  is  nothing  to  New 
York;  it  isn't  Hoboken,  it  isn't  Rahway  compared  to  New 
York.     In  Boston  they're  a  lot  of  shoemakers." 

Then  he  would  fall  to  long  dissertations  on  the  size  and 
grandeur  of  New  York,  on  its  strange  corners  and  remote 
by-ways,  the  curiosities  of  the  Bowery,  the  mysterious 
under  side  of  New  York  life,  the  perilous  regions,  old 
Five  Points,  Hell's  Kitchen,  Cherry  Hill  and  the  docks,  the 
forests  of  ship's  masts,  "  and  Spanish  sailors  with  bearded 
lips  "  and  all  the  witchery  of  the  water  front.  And  then 
he  would  tell  of  the  life  of  a  reporter  in  New  York,  its 
hazards  and  its  chances  for  glory  and  profit,  and  dilate 
upon  notable  feats  of  reporting;  for  in  that  extraordinary 
mind  he  had  stored  incident  upon  incident  until  he  seemed 
a  mine  of  illustrative  lore.  He  had  happened,  in  some 
way  I  cannot  now  recall,  to  be  connected  with  a  phase 
of  the  New  York  Sun's  handling  of  the  famous  Nathan 
murder,  and  he  produced  from  his  memory  a  luminous 
story  of  that  grisly  and  historic  crime.  And  from  that 
he  went  into  a  recital  of  the  notable  and  unsolved  mysteries 
of  New  York,  from  the  Burden  shooting  to  the  "  car  hook  " 
murder,  the  weird  places  in  which  some  of  these  had  oc- 
curred, the  strange  case  of  Charley  Ross,  of  which  he 
had  made  a  study,  until  the  broad  sunlight  streamed  in 

15 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

the  streets  and  the  day  gang  came  and  found  us  still 
there. 

This  soiled  and  sorry  ragamuffin  whose  ordinary  con- 
versation was  more  interesting  than  most  novels,  and  whose 
morals  were  said  on  eminent  authority  to  be  utterly  de- 
plorable, had  so  often  in  his  travels  escaped  violent  death 
that  he  was  convinced  of  a  destiny  to  die  of  disease  and 
was  far  more  fearful  of  drinking  contaminated  water  than 
of  riding  on  car  trucks.  Once  as  he  clung  to  the  bumpers 
of  a  freight  car  a  mad  or  intoxicated  brakeman  had  fired 
five  revolver  shots  at  him  and  every  shot  had  clipped  or 
gone  through  Scotty's  hat.  Whereupon  the  brakeman, 
probably  convinced  that  he  had  seen  a  ghost,  leaped  from 
the  train  and  was  killed.  Several  times  Scotty  had  been 
in  train  wrecks.  Once  the  car  was  on  fire  and  he  was 
pinned  down  by  a  pile  of  joist,  but  two  brakemen  worked 
with  frenzied  zeal  until  they  freed  him  and  saved  his  life; 
and  then  pursued  him  down  the  track  pelting  him  witK 
coal  for  stealing  a  ride.  His  walking  experiment  was  made 
in  the  summer  of  1874  when  business  was  depressed  and 
the  country  was  full  of  tramps.  He  joined  a  colony  of 
these  and  lived  with  them  in  a  camp  on  the  Wabash  River, 
near  Logansport,  if  my  memory  serves  me  right.  He  said 
there  were  six  in  the  party  and  so  great  was  the  terror 
they  inspired  that  the  farmers  used  to  come  every  morning 
with  presents  of  milk  and  chickens  and  bread;  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  the  tramps  were  the  most  harmless  of  men 
and  had  barely  courage  to  steal  watermelons  and  green  corn 
even  at  night.  One  had  been  a  clergyman  and  used  to 
reprove  the  others  for  swearing. 

His  stars  deceived  Scotty,  poor  man.  What  we  had 
warned  him  of  and  he  had  scoffed  at  came  to  pass.  It  was 
down  in  southeastern  Iowa  one  wet  night.    Perhaps  he  lost 

16 


Old  Days  with  the  Tramp  Printers 

his  clutch  upon  the  truck  or  perhaps  mercifully  he  was 
asleep;  but  they  found  him  dead  on  the  tracks  the  next 
morning.  We  could  better  have  spared  a  better  man.  A 
meeting  was  called  in  our  office  and  we  passed  a  resolution 
of  regret  that  was  more  sincere  if  less  formal  than  some 
other  similar  expressions  I  have  known,  and  it  was  charac- 
teristic of  printers  that  instantly  a  sum  was  subscribed  to 
provide  decent  burial.  One  of  the  younger  men  went  to 
the  place  to  represent  us.  He  had  funds  enough  to  buy  a 
lot  in  a  cemetery  and  even  a  head  board  and  a  floral 
wreath,  and  so  the  restless  spirit  came  at  last  to  rest.  His 
memory  is  green  with  me;  I  doubt  not  it  is  with  others; 
and  if  this  scanty  tribute  be  tardy  it  is  paid  with  gratitude, 
for  it  was  he  that  filled  days  and  nights  with  unrestful 
visions  of  the  outside  world  and  the  outlines  of  reporting 
as  an  art. 


17 


II 


THE    CASE   OP   WILLIAM   HEILWAGNER 

Having  gained  from  my  peripatetic  friend  and  from 
other  sources  the  impression  that  the  true  glory  of  news- 
paper work  lay  in  the  unraveling  of  murder  mysteries,  and 
that  every  reporter  should  endeavor  to  be  a  kind  of  M. 
Lecocq,  I  yearned  to  put  into  practice  the  lore  I  had 
gathered  concerning  these  occult  matters.  I  was  deeply 
gratified  when  some  shifting  of  the  force  in  my  father's 
office  gave  me  for  a  time  an  opportunity  to  fill  the  position 
of  city  editor,  and  therefore  to  be  close  to  any  good, 
baffling  mysteries,  should  such  arise.  And  here  a  series 
of  misadventures  brought  me  to  disaster  in  a  way  that  still 
oppresses  me,  as  regularly  as  I  think  of  them,  with  some- 
thing beyond  humiliation,  a  fact  that  will  be  clearer  to  you 
when  I  have  recited  the  record. 

The  first  of  my  troubles  befell  me  before  I  had  been 
two  weeks  in  my  new  position.  I  should  digress  here  to 
explain  that  the  city  editor  of  my  father's  paper  was  also 
the  staff  of  reporters,  the  market  editor,  and  the  dramatic 
critic.  He  was  obliged,  in  the  professional  phrase,  to 
cover,  with  one  assistant,  everything  that  happened  in  a 
city  of  twenty-five  thousand  inhabitants,  a  fact  that  gave 
him,  I  can  assure  you,  but  little  opportunity  for  leisure  and 
general  conversation.  The  greater  part  of  his  labor  con- 
sisted of  scurrying  from  one  possible  source  of  news  to 
another  in  the  hope,  often  but  vain,  of  securing  the  elusive 

18 


The  Case  of  WilUam  Heihoagner 

item.  He  had  an  average  of  five  long  columns  to  fill  and  on 
dull  days  the  task,  to  an  unimaginative  man,  was  over- 
whelming. If  he  could  get  nothing  to  reprint  he  was  often 
driven  back  upon  sheer  and  perhaps  clumsy  invention. 
Once,  I  recall,  in  the  midst  of  a  very  dull  summer,  our  one 
railroad  issued  a  new  time-table,  with  very  slight  changes, 
and  a  grateful  city  editor  reprinted  from  the  back  of  it 
the  "  Rules  and  Regulations  for  Employees"  that  had 
been  made  when  the  railroad  was  built.  And  often  a  clip- 
ping from  a  far  away  exchange  with  names  and  places  deftly 
shifted  has  saved  an  otherwise  desperate  situation. 

In  a  side  street  near  the  river  was  a  certain  old  junk 
shop  that  maintained  (without  deserving)  a  grizzled  little 
proprietor  of  the  name  of  Needham,  if  I  have  it  right.  I 
knew  him  by  sight  as  I  knew  most  of  the  dwellers  of  the 
town  wherein  I  had  been  born  and  reared,  but  not  being 
aware  that  he  had  knowledge  of  me  was  surprised  one 
day  to  be  hailed  by  him  as  I  sped  along  intent  upon  the 
five  columns  and  the  task  of  filling  them.  Astonishment 
took  on  the  tinge  of  pleasure  when  he  drew  me  into  his 
wretched  old  place,  filled  with  ancient  chandlery  and  scrap 
iron,  and  whispering  that  he  had  an  item  for  me,  cocked 
his  head  and  stood  off  to  relish  the  result  of  that  com- 
munication. 

"  See  that  safe  ?  "  he  said,  pointing  to  a  rusty  old  iron 
box  on  the  floor.  "  Do  you  know  what  that  is?  Of  course 
you  don't.     My  boy,  that  is  the  safe  of  the  Effie  Afton." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "the  Effie  Afton.  And  what  is  the 
Effie  Afton?" 

He  made  a  signal  of  despair.  "  What  is  the  Effie  Afton  ? 
You  mean  what  was  the  Effie  Afton.  But  I  forgot  how 
young  you  are.  The  Effie  Afton,  my  son,  was  the  finest 
steamer  that  ever  sailed  on  the  Mississippi   River.     And 

19 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

she  was  lost — ^lost  before  my  eyes.  Not  one  hundred  feet 
from  where  we  are  now^  I  stood  and  saw  her  cast  off^,  saw 
her  signal  for  the  bridge,  saw  her  strike  the  bridge  and 
sink — twenty  years  ago.  The  terrible  disaster  of  the  Effie 
Afton;  one  hundred  lives  lost;  you  must  have  heard  of  it.** 

"  How  do  you  know  this  is  the  safe  of  the  Effie  Afton?  " 

"  How  do  I  know  ?  My  boy,  I  helped  to  build  that 
boat.  I  put  this  safe  into  her  purser's  office.  I  know  it 
well.  And  this  morning,  when  they  brought  it  to  me,  I 
just  sat  down  and  cried.  They  were  fishermen  that  had 
been  running  a  trot  line,  and  one  of  their  anchors  caught 
in  the  handle,  and  they  got  help  and  raised  it,  and  here 
it  is,  I  stood  on  the  shore  and  watched  her  sail  away; 
dear  old  Hank  Davison  was  her  captain,  my  dearest  friend 
on  earth;  I  saw  him  on  the  upper  deck  when  she  left  the 
shore  and  waved  good-by  to  him  and  a  few  minutes  later 
he  was  dead,"  and  the  old  man's  eyes  filled  with  tears. 

Here  was  manna  in  the  wilderness.  It  was  always  ad- 
missible and  an  admired  feat  to  recall  an  event  that  hap- 
pened years  ago  if  you  could  find  something  upon  which  to 
hang  the  reminiscence,  and  the  peg  here  provided  was  all 
that  the  most  exacting  could  require.  The  safe  of  the 
Effie  Afton  returned  in  this  startling  way  to  the  very  man 
that  put  it  into  position  years  before — a  coincidence  made 
to  order  could  not  be  more  perfectly  adapted  to  my  needs. 

I  had  yet  to  learn  one  of  the  reporter's  first  and  most 
useful  lessons,  which  is  that  there  are  some  things  that 
do  not  happen.  To  my  confusion  and  disgust  it  was  the 
foreman  of  the  office,  a  person  with  whom  I  had  an  ancient 
feud,  that  undeceived  me.  I  had  written  about  two  columns 
of  a  high  order  of  literature  concerning  the  historic  dis- 
aster to  the  Effie  Afton  when  the  low-browed  foreman 
entered  with  the  proofs  and  saved  the  paper  and  me  from 

20 


The  Case  of  William  Heil^agner 

a  position  wherein  we  should  have  been  the  laughing  stock 
of  the  state.  He  happened  to  notice  the  story  on  the 
galleys  and  did  a  Christian  deed  of  rescue  for  a  wholly 
unchristian  motive,  which  was_,  in  his  own  detestable  phrase, 
**  to  have  one  on  the  kid  city  editor."  The  safe  had  lain 
for  years  in  a  back  alley  and  had  never  been  nearer  to 
the  Effie  Afton  than  I  had  been.  George  Davenport's 
family  had  long  used  it  as  a  receptacle  for  kitchen  slops. 
So  with  varying  fortunes  went  the  battle  against  the 
five  long  columns,  sometimes  with  joyful  success  as  when 
a  new  steamboat  appeared  and  one  could  write  an  unin- 
telligible column  about  her  engines:  sometimes  but  sadly 
as  when  the  day's  harrowing  produced  nothing  but  barren 
"  city  briefs.*'  Ours  was  a  river  town  and  occasionally  the 
crew  of  a  log  raft  would  come  ashore  and  get  drunk  of 
a  dull  night  and  make  their  names  blessed  among  us  by 
falling  into  the  hands  of  the  scanty  police  force;  but  as 
a  rule  the  monotonous  passing  of  steamers  constituted  our 
sole  produce  from  that  source.  That  "  the  Diamond  Joe 
arrived  from  St.  Louis  and  left  for  St.  Paul/*  and  "  the 
Josephine  arrived  from  St.  Paul  and  left  for  St.  Louis," 
did  not  seem  of  enthralling  interest  however  we  might  turn 
such  facts  to  and  fro  upon  the  spit  of  an  urgent  necessity. 
Between  the  closing  of  the  schools  in  June  and  the  be- 
ginning of  the  county  fair  in  September  a  horrible  lethargy 
seemed  to  fall  upon  the  place.  Nobody  did  anything  ex- 
cept to  eat  and  sleep,  and  however  needful  may  be  these 
exercises  they  furnish  nothing  for  a  hard-driven  man  with 
five  columns  to  fill.  The  heat  was  usually  great,  the 
atmosphere  soft  and  languid,  and  except  for  the  few  and 
much  envied  persons  that  were  able  to  afford  a  trip  to 
the  seaside  or  to  Oconomowoc  and  thereby  furnish  an 
attenuated  paragraph,   the  city  editor  seemed  without  a 

21 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

friend.  After  one  had  exhausted  the  personal  items^  the 
hotel  arrivals^  which  were  few  and  exclusively  of  travel- 
ing salesmen_,  and  the  records  of  births  and  deaths,  there 
was  nothing  to  fall  back  upon  but  the  exchanges.  Our 
population,  being  largely  German,  was  domestic,  orderly, 
and  in  a  news  sense,  unprofitable.  In  the  summer  months 
it  seemed  to  go  to  sleep,  reversing  what  is,  I  believe,  the 
practice  of  the  bear  and  the  Rocky  Mountain  goat. 

It  was  now  unseasonably  aroused  from  its  torpor  by  a 
murder  mystery  which  while  not  exactly  of  the  type  I 
should  have  chosen  was  still  puzzling  enough.  There  lived 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  town  a  poor  peddler,  well  known 
to  be  a  harmless  person  of  good  habits.  He  did  not  drink, 
he  had  no  enemies,  never  had  the  courage  to  quarrel  with 
anyone,  and  had  no  affairs  with  women.  At  dusk  one 
evening  he  was  driving  homeward  in  his  wagon,  below 
the  tail  board  of  which  hung  a  step.  Someone  must 
have  gotten  upon  that,  crept  up  behind  him,  and  killed 
him,  for  he  was  found  only  a  moment  or  two  later  with 
his  head  beaten  in,  still  holding  the  reins.  He  had  not 
been  robbed,  for  his  old  brass  watch  and  about  two  dollars 
in  change  were  in  his  pockets. 

I  was  fond  of  imagining  myself  to  be  Amos  Cummings 
or  Sam  Smith  or  some  other  famous  New  York  reporter 
of  whom  I  had  heard  and  of  trying  to  think  what  my  model 
would  do  in  any  given  conditions.  Both  my  imaginings 
and  my  theories  now  broke  under  me.  Here  was  a  mystery 
ready  to  my  hand  for  the  solving,  and  I  did  not  know  what 
to  do  with  it.  I  could  well  believe  that  in  the  like  situation 
a  New  York  reporter  would  go  unerringly  to  the  secret, 
would  start  out  with  some  inspiration  and  lay  a  hand 
upon  the  guilty  one,  but  I  did  not  know  which  way  to 
begin.     I  looked  at  the  scene  and  questioned  the  man's 

22 


The  Case  of  William  Heilwagner 

family  and  neighbors  and  that  is  as  far  as  I  ever  got.  I 
knew  that  I  ought  to  solve  the  mystery  and  to  further  the 
ends  of  justice  but  I  never  did,  and  so  far  as  I  know  the 
crime  still  remains  without  explanation.  It  happened  in  a 
thickly  inhabited  street_,  with  two  hundred  people  within 
call,  and  nobody  ever  knew  why  it  happened  nor  who 
did  it. 

The  other  instance  of  my  incapacity  was  of  a  far  more 
serious  nature.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Mississippi  about 
eleven  miles  above  our  town  dwelt  in  a  lonely  spot  by  the 
riverside  three  German  market  gardeners  named  Heilwag- 
ner.  Two  were  extremely  uninteresting  persons.  William, 
the  father,  was  short,  thick-set,  dull,  slow  of  speech,  and 
unprepossessing  of  aspect.  When  he  appeared  in  the 
streets  of  the  near-by  town,  the  children  used  to  laugh 
at  the  fringe  of  frowsy  beard  under  his  chin,  his  ill-fitting 
and  greasy  attire,  and  his  shambling,  plowman's  gait. 
Otto,  his  son,  was  much  of  a  piece  with  him  and  whatever 
of  vivacity  there  might  have  been  in  that  dull  household 
centered  about  the  third  member.  Otto's  wife,  who  was  a 
dark,  lithe,  and  handsome  young  animal. 

By  all  accounts  she  was  fond  of  amusement,  and  life 
on  an  onion  farm,  with  its  back-breaking  and  monotonous 
labor,  must  have  been  deadly  to  her.  To  make  matters 
worse  she  had  been  a  chambermaid  in  a  city  hotel  and  the 
taste  for  the  vanities  of  town  life  was  strong  upon  her. 
But  the  father  and  son  were  plodders  and  of  the  country, 
even  in  Bavaria  where  they  had  been  born  and  whence 
they  came,  heaven  knows  under  what  delusion  of  wealth 
or  opportunity  in  the  new  world,  to  settle  at  last  into  this 
forlorn  spot.  The  woman  was  headstrong  and  light- 
hearted;  the  old  man  was  religious  in  a  dull,  and  probably 
sour  way;  and  the  amusements  of  his  daughter-in-law  gave 

23 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

him  continual  offense.  At  every  opportunity  she  was  away 
to  dances  in  the  country  towns;  when  the  old  man  re- 
proved her_,  she  resented  with  insult  his  intrusion  into  her 
affairs;  and  as  Otto  sided  sometimes  with  his  father  and 
sometimes  with  his  wife  the  jangling  was  notorious  and, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  neighbors,  must  have  been  incessant. 
It  appeared  also  that  scandal  was  sometimes  rife  about  the 
young  woman;  and  it  was  altogether  a  wretched  home. 

About  the  middle  of  the  summer,  when  the  onions  had 
been  well  weeded  and  the  stress  of  work  was  relaxed.  Otto 
found  employment  across  the  river  and  left  home.  For  a 
time  the  old  man  and  the  young  woman  were  the  sole 
tenants  of  the  place.  Then  the  young  woman  disappeared 
and  the  old  man  lived  on  alone. 

The  nearest  neighbor,  noting  this,  asked  William  what 
had  become  of  his  daughter-in-law.  When  he  answered 
simply  that  he  did  not  know,  talk  and  surmise  began  to  go 
about  the  countryside.  A  man  was  found  who  when  driving 
past  the  Heilwagner  house  late  one  night,  had  heard  faint 
cries  and  sobbing.  William  lived  on  unperturbed.  Some  of 
the  good  people,  remembering  the  violent  quarrels  of  that 
household,  carried  the  matter  to  official  notice.  A  constable 
came  and  questioned  William,  who  worked  steadily  in  the 
onion  field  and  knew  nothing.  With  the  constable  a  little 
crowd  of  farmers  had  gathered.  It  was  proposed  that  the 
premises  should  be  searched.  The  house  and  the  barn 
were  turned  inside  out.  Except  for  the  fact  that  all  the 
woman's  little  possessions  seemed  to  be  in  her  room  and 
undisturbed  nothing  was  discovered.  Then  one  of  the 
neighbors  said  that  the  pile  of  firewood  by  the  barn  seemed 
to  him  to  be  in  a  different  position  from  that  in  which 
he  had  been  accustomed  to  see  it.  At  the  word  the  crowd 
seized  the  firewood  and  began  to  pitch  it  into  a  corner, 

24 


The  Case  of  William  Heilwoagner 

and  at  the  bottom  they  found  the  body  of  Otto*s  wife. 
She  had  been  beaten  to  death  over  the  head. 

"  What  do  you  know  about  this.''  *'  said  the  crowd  grimly 
to  the  old  man.  He  stared  at  the  corpse  unshaken  and 
merely  repeated  that  he  knew  nothing.  **  Ich  weiss  nichts/* 
he  said  and  folded  his  hands.  There  was  a  suggestion  of 
lynching^  but  wise  men  pointed  out  that  perhaps  the  old 
man  might  be  innocent.  How  about  Otto.^  they  said.  So 
the  constable  took  William  to  the  county  jail  at  Rock  Island 
and  locked  him  up. 

How  was  it,  then_,  about  Otto?  He  was  readily  found 
and  as  readily  established  his  innocence.  He  lived  at  a 
boarding  house  in  the  village  directly  across  the  river.  On 
the  night  when  the  neighbor  heard  the  cries  and  sobbing, 
as  on  every  other  night  for  weeks.  Otto  was  in  the  boarding 
house;  the  boarders  all  said  so.  They  saw  him  and  played 
pinochle  with  him  and  saw  him  go  to  bed. 

All  this  seemed  perfectly  plain  and  yet  the  behavior 
of  the  old  man  struck  some  of  us  as  odd  and  unsatisfactory. 
At  the  preliminary  examination,  as  subsequently  at  the 
trial,  he  made  no  attempt  to  defend  himself,  answering 
questions  in  monosyllables  and  volunteering  nothing.  He 
had  an  odd  habit  of  sitting  forward  in  his  chair,  his  legs 
crossed,  his  hands  clasped  around  the  knee  that  was  upper- 
most, while  he  swung  one  foot  slowly  to  and  fro,  and 
studied  the  floor.  At  such  times  he  seemed  unaware  of 
what  was  going  on  about  him,  and  to  be  with  clenched 
lips  lost  in  some  bitter  meditation.  Something  about  him 
seemed  infinitely  pathetic  and  wholly  incongruous  with  the 
idea  that  he  was  a  cruel  and  red-handed  murderer,  and 
when  I  learned  that  he  had  given  his  attorney  no  assistance 
and  no  information  except  to  declare  many  times  that  he 
was  not  guilty,  I  had  an  inspiration  to  see  if  by  the  practice 

25 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

of  this  detective  art  of  which  I  had  heard  so  much  I  could 
bring  a  clearer  light  upon  the  case. 

The  scene  of  the  crime^  being  revisited,  showed  nothing; 
the  neighbors  could  add  no  more  details  to  their  previous 
stories;  Otto's  fellow-boarders  gave  him  a  perfect  alibi. 
By  the  process  of  exclusion  there  seemed  no  one  in  the 
least  likely  to  do  the  murder  except  the  old  man,  and  to 
him  I  went  at  last  in  the  county  jail. 

He  sat  in  his  cell,  nursing  his  knee,  his  eyes  upon  a  little 
square  of  light  that  fell  upon  the  floor.  I  was  conscious 
of  the  embarrassment  of  youth  and  inexperience  and  some- 
thing more.  It  struck  me  of  a  sudden  that  here  we  all 
were,  prosecuting  officers,  police,  press,  court,  judge,  and 
all  society,  fiercely  pursuing  this  one  little  man  who  seemed 
so  defenseless  and  pitiable  like  a  rabbit  before  the  hounds. 
Before  that  I  had  looked  at  the  case  with  professional 
impartiality.  Now  I  began  to  hope  earnestly  that  some- 
thing might  develop  in  the  old  man's  favor. 

He  turned  upon  me  his  mild,  dull  eyes  and  acknowledged 
my  greeting. 

**  Mr.  Heilwagner,"  I  said  rather  lamely,  "  there  are 
persons  in  this  community  who  do  not  believe  you  are 
guilty,  and  if  you  will  give  me  a  full  statement  of  your 
case  I  think  it  will  be  for  your  advantage." 

**  Oh,  yes,"  said  the  old  man  indifferently.  "  Oh,  yes, 
I  think  so,  I  think  so,"  and  relapsed  into  his  former  attitude. 
I  was  rather  astonished  to  find  that  he  seemed  perfectly 
to  understand  English,  while  he  spoke  it  readily  and  with- 
out much  accent. 

**  Well,  now,"  said  I,  much  encouraged,  **  tell  me  about 
it.  Where  were  you  on  the  night  when  your  daughter-in- 
law  was  killed  ?  " 

'*Who?    Me?" 

S6 


The  Case  of  William  Heihoagner 

"  Yes_,  you.     Where  were  you?" 

"  Oh,  I  was  in  the  house/* 

"Well,  did  you  see  her  get  killed?" 

"Who?    Me?     No,  I  didn't  see  her  get  killed." 

"  Did  you  hear  her  cry  out  ?  " 

"Who?    Me?" 

"  Yes,  you.     Did  you  hear  her  cry  out?  " 

"  No,  I  didn't  hear  nothing." 

"  Did  she  go  to  bed  as  usual  that  night?  " 

"  Who  ?  Annie  ?  Oh,  yes,  I  guess.  She  go  to  bed  all 
right." 

"  Did  you  hear  her  get  up  in  the  night  ?  Did  you  hear 
anybody  come  to  the  house?  Did  you  hear  any  talking 
or  fighting  ?  " 

"Who?    Me?" 

"  Yes,  you." 

"  No,  I  didn't  hear  nothing." 

"  Well,  you  knew  that  she  went  to  bed  that  night  and 
she  wasn't  there  the  next  morning  and  she  never  came 
back.     Didn't  you  think  that  was  strange  ?  " 

"  Didn't  I  think  what  was  strange  ?  " 

"  That  she  had  gone  away  in  the  night  and  never  come 
back.     Didn't  you  think  that  was  strange  ?  " 

"  Who  ?  Me  ?  No,  I  didn't  think  nothing  about  it.  I 
just  go  weed  my  onions." 

And  so  went  the  conversation  minute  after  minute  until 
my  allotted  time  had  expired.  It  did  not  seem  in  nature 
that  the  man  should  be  so  dull  and  yet  I  could  make 
nothing  of  him.  I  could  not  even  say  with  certainty  that 
he  had  a  sense  of  the  deadly  peril  he  was  in,  and  yet  some- 
thing told  me  that  he  had  and  knew  all  much  better  than  I. 

Able  counsel  had  been  assigned  by  the  court  and  did 
all  that  could  be  done,  but  the  case  was  so  clear  that  the 

27 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

process  of  justice  could  not  be  long  delayed.  The  murder 
was  committed  in  August.  A  Friday  at  the  end  of  March 
was  appointed  for  the  execution.  Meantime  the  old  man 
in  the  jail  underwent  no  visible  change  in  the  approaching 
shadow  of  the  gallows.  Lutheran  clergymen  attended 
faithfully  upon  him  and  he  joined  in  their  ministrations; 
at  other  times  he  sat  there  in  his  cell  with  his  legs  crossed 
and  studied  the  light  upon  the  floor.  But  on  the  night 
before  his  last  day  of  life  he  grew  restless. 

**  Do  you  want  anything?  "  said  the  warden  kindly. 

"  Get  Otto.    I  want  to  see  Otto/'  said  the  old  man. 

So  they  brought  Otto  to  the  cell  door,  for  in  those  last 
hours  no  closer  access  was  allowed  to  the  man  condemned. 
He  put  his  hands  through  the  grating  of  the  door  and  took 
Otto's  head  between  them  and  kissed  his  forehead  twice, 
making  some  strange  guttural  noise.  Then  he  sat  down 
again  and  looked  where  the  square  of  light  had  been  but 
was  no  longer,  because  of  the  night. 

On  the  last  day  the  sun  shone  clear,  and  a  sharp  wind 
blew  through  the  narrow  courtyard  of  the  jail.  A  little 
past  noon,  the  old  man,  led  by  the  guards,  shambled  forth 
upon  the  scaffold.  I  saw  him  look  up  at  the  sky  and  the 
flying  clouds  and  all  around,  at  the  sunshine  in  the  court 
and  the  sparrows  in  the  eaves,  and  at  last  he  looked  down 
into  the  faces  of  the  little  knot  of  newspaper  reporters 
and  sheriff's  officers  that  had  come  to  see  him  die.  Then 
he  said,  in  a  voice  singularly  clear,  resonant,  and  steady: 

"  Gentlemen — I  am  innocent  of  this  crime." 

The  sheriff,  who,  I  remember,  was  trembling  and  crying, 
did  his  part  of  the  dreadful  work  and  so  ended  the  life 
of  this  condemned  murderer. 

"  Gentlemen,  I  am  innocent  of  this  crime."  Not  one  of 
us  that  heard  believed  him.     What  guilty  man  is  ever 

28 


The  Case  of  William  Heilwagner 

punished?  What  murderer,  however  hardened,  or  however 
certain  his  crime,  fails  to  protest  on  the  gallows  in  the 
like  terms  and  with  the  same  hardihood?  All  the  experi- 
enced reporters  there  told  me  they  had  heard  such  assertions 
often  on  the  like  occasion  and  were  moved  not  a  whit. 

And  yet  that  dull  old  man  was  telling  but  the  literal 
truth.  Almost  ten  years  after  that  day  a  man  committed 
suicide  by  jumping  from  the  bridge  at  Quincy,  Illinois.  He 
left  a  written  statement  that  was  an  explicit  confession  of 
the  murder  of  Annie  Heilwagner.  It  was  Otto.  He  had 
been  living,  he  said,  at  the  boarding  house  in  the  town  on 
the  other  side  of  the  river.  Late  at  night  he  had  dropped 
out  of  his  window,  taken  a  skiff,  and  rowed  across  the  stream. 
At  the  Heilwagner  house  he  tapped  at  Annie's  window  and 
whispered  to  her  to  come  out,  and  when  she  came  out  he 
had  killed  her.  Then  he  had  hidden  the  body  under  the 
woodpile,  rowed  back  to  his  boarding  house,  and  nobody 
the  wiser.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  kill  her  when 
he  found  that  she  had  been  unfaithful  to  him.  And  he  had 
allowed  his  father  to  be  hanged  an  innocent  man. 

**  Who  ?  Me  ?  "  the  old  man  had  said,  in  answer  to  my 
questions.  He  knew  it  all,  he  knew  who  killed  Annie,  and 
he  went  calmly,  to  his  death  to  save  his  guilty  son.  Dull 
old  man,  chill  and  repulsive,  he  had  in  him  so  much  of 
the  hero  and  so  much  of  love.  "  For  greater  love  hath  no 
man  than  this." 

It  was  a  rugged  introduction  for  a  novice  to  the  business 
of  crime  detecting  and  legalized  life-taking.  If  I  had  been 
expert  at  my  trade  I  might  have  saved  that  man.  Post  facto 
illumination — how  foolish  it  is!  I  can  see  now  the  in- 
dications and  signs  and  hints  that  meant  nothing  to  me 
then.  But  even  though  I  knew  at  the  time  nothing  of  the 
full  horror  of  that  day  the  experience  sickened  me  of  hang- 

29 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

ings.  I  have  never  since  acquiesced  in  any  capital  punish- 
ment. It  is  as  illogical  as  it  is  profitless.  I  have  had  in 
my  time  more  than  my  share  of  these  spectacles^  and  I  take 
it  as  a  fact  worthy  of  serious-  reflection  that  I  have  seen 
the  state  put  to  death  eleven  persons  and  five  of  these  I 
know  to  have  been  absolutely  innocent,  while  of  the  guilt 
of  a  sixth  and  the  mental  responsibility  of  a  seventh  there 
were  the  gravest  doubts.  Murder  upon  murder,  and  if  I 
should  be  asked  what  good  or  advantage  society  reaped 
from  the  death  of  any  or  all  of  these,  I  should  be  unable 
to  say,  nor  has  there  yet  appeared  in  my  range  of  ex- 
perience any  person  more  expert  than  I  to  make  that 
answer. 


30 


Ill 


THE    MAN    OUT    OP    WORK 


So  here  we  were  at  last,  the  two  of  us,  catapulted,  so  to 
speak,  into  the  great  city,  the  place  that  if  I  were  in  the 
way  of  romance  I  might  call  the  city  of  my  dreams.  To  be- 
gin the  career  metropolitan  in  pursuit  of  success  and  fame 
we  were  possessed  of  thirty-seven  dollars  between  us,  some 
vague  and  chiefly  erroneous  information  about  the  world  we 
were  to  conquer,  and  a  naive  confidence  that  appears  to  me 
now  not  less  than  beautiful.  For  my  own  part  I  knew  so 
little  of  New  York  that  when  we  walked  down  to  the 
Battery  the  first  day  I  took  Governor's  Island  to  be  Black- 
well's  ;  and  desiring  to  go  to  Brooklyn  Bridge  took  a  street- 
car that  landed  me  at  the  West  Twenty-third  Street  ferry. 
But  most  difficulties  seem  slight  to  youth. 

What  was  more  important  than  our  ignorance  of  the  city 
was  our  unfamiliarity  with  the  actual  methods  of  New 
York  newspapers.  Both  of  us  had  held  in  the  West  posi- 
tions of  some  distinction.  I  had  been  successively  the 
managing  editor  of  three  daily  newspapers  that  I  deemed 
to  be  important;  I  knew  well  enough  how  these  were  made 
and  every  stage  of  the  process,  and  I  never  imagined  that 
the  fame  of  the  Detroit  Tribune  had  not  penetrated  to 
Park  Row,  nor  that  the  methods  of  Detroit  could  differ 
essentially  from  the  methods  of  New  York.  Newspaper 
making  is  newspaper  making;  well,  here  am  I,  a  skilled 
practitioner  of  the  art;  bring  on  your  newspaper  and  I 
will  show  you  how  to  make  it. 

31 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

The  first  slight  disarrangement  of  our  pleasant  dream 
came  early  in  the  engagement;  the  first  day,  if  I  remember. 
It  was,  in  fact,  a  rather  alarming  discovery  about  our 
funds.  With  amazing  rapidity  these  melted  away,  we  could 
hardly  tell  how.  A  dollar  in  New  York  hardly  seemed  to 
last  so  long  as  a  quarter  lasted  in  Detroit.  We  arrived 
in  the  morning  and  took  a  cab  to  the  hotel,  that  being  the 
better  form  in  men  come  to  conquer  the  metropolis,  and 
were  astounded  when  the  cabman  demanded  a  dollar  and 
a  half  each  for  driving  us  about  a  mile.  At  the  hotel  we 
sat  down  to  what  we  designed  should  be  a  modest  breakfast 
and  the  prices  on  the  bill  of  fare  counseled  us  to  serious 
thought.  This  had  been  commended  to  us  as  a  cheap  hotel ; 
what  on  earth  must  the  others  be  ?  Obviously  we  could  not 
long  delay  our  first  assault  upon  the  newspaper  ramparts, 
otherwise  we  should  quickly  arrive  at  an  awkward  state 
in  our  finances.  To-morrow,  no  later,  we  shall  begin  the 
campaign.     To-day  let  us  look  at  the  great  city. 

I  had  been  vaguely  conscious  from  the  time  of  my 
arrival  that  the  people  around  me  were  different  from 
the  good  folks  of  the  West.  No  one  seemed  to  look  at 
nor  care  for  anybody  else,  but  all  were  rushing  frantically 
and  self-absorbed  upon  some  indiscernible  goal.  Every- 
body with  whom  I  came  in  contact  seemed  to  take  pains 
to  be  disagreeable,  and  that  was  not  at  all  the  way  with 
us  in  the  West.  The  clerk  and  porter  at  the  hotel  had 
been  sour  and  curt;  the  ticket  chopper  on  the  elevated 
railroad  cursed  me  because  I  didn't  know  that  the  ticket 
was  to  be  deposited  in  the  chopping  box;  the  guard  only 
laughed  evilly  when  I  asked  what  was  the  next  station 
after  Twenty-third  Street.  In  a  curious  way  these  re- 
peated observations  seemed  to  shake  me  internally  until 
in  a  strange  new  confused  world  of  men   I  was  losing 

S2 


The  Man  out  of  Work 

all  familiar  anchorage.  In  the  afternoon  we  went  by 
the  bridge  to  Brooklyn.  The  car  had  started  and  I  was 
gazing  intently  at  the  panorama  of  the  East  River  and 
the  dense  forest  of  masts  that  in  those  days  stretched 
along  South  Street  when  I  was  aware  of  someone  striking 
me  on  the  knee.  Turning  swiftly  around  in  my  seat  I 
found  myself  confronting  a  middle-aged  man,  very  well 
dressed,  glaring  at  me  with  what  seemed  to  be  demo- 
niacal hatred.  In  a  cold,  harsh,  rasping  voice  he  was 
crying,  "  Move  over  there,  you !  Move  over ! "  and  I 
saw  that  he  wished  me  to  move  so  that  with  greater  com- 
fort he  could  sit,  though  there  was  room  enough.  I  obeyed 
in  some  confusion,  and  took  an  early  opportunity  to  study 
the  face  of  this  person,  who  at  once  upon  sitting  down 
plunged  into  the  reading  of  a  newspaper,  oblivious  to 
everybody  in  the  car.  There  was  something  about  his 
face  so  hard,  so  cruel,  so  arrogant,  and  so  brutal  that 
never  having  seen  the  like  I  wondered  at  it.  He  had 
rather  a  full  and  sensual  face,  the  gray  mustache  was 
short  and  carefully  trimmed,  every  article  in  his  attire 
was  faultless  and  modish.  Long  afterward  I  discovered 
that  the  man  was  a  famous  Wall  Street  broker,  a  leader 
among  the  bears,  and  a  perfect  type  of  his  class.  At  the 
time  being  I  could  but  marvel  at  his  bearing,  his  obvious 
disregard  of  every  human  being  except  himself,  and  that 
strange  expression  of  cold  cruelty.  Presently  I  looked 
from  him  to  the  others  in  the  car,  and  thought  I  saw 
that  look  reflected  (in  a  less  degree)  upon  every  face 
in  sight.  "  This  New  York  is  a  cruel  place,"  I  concluded 
and  a  chill  went  over  me. 

We  had  arrived  on  the  17th  of  June  at  the  beginning 
of  the  hottest  and  dullest  summer  that  New  York  had 
known  in  several  years.     If  we  had  been  other  than  blind 

S3 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

fools  plunging  into  a  game  of  which  we  knew  nothing  we 
should  have  understood  that  the  summer  is  the  worst  pos- 
sible time  to  seek  work  in  New  York  and  that  the  problem 
then  before  every  city  editor  is  how  to  reduce  his  staff, 
not  increase  it.  Of  this  we  knew  nothing.  Newspapers 
were  made  every  day;  many  men  were  required  to  make 
them;  when  it  came  to  making  newspapers  we  were  as 
good  as  the  best.     What  more  was  necessary? 

In  this  frame  of  mind  (more  or  less)  we  sallied  forth 
on  the  morning.  Within  the  first  two  hours  we  had  suc- 
cessfully mastered  the  amazing  fact  that  in  New  York 
City  you  cannot  see  a  city  editor.  The  first  office  that  we 
approached  with  the  intention  of  offering  our  valued  serv- 
ices was  the  New  York  Herald,  then  published  at  Broadway 
and  Ann  Street,  opposite  old  St.  PauVs.  We  climbed  the 
three  long  flights  of  iron  stairs  to  the  city  department  and 
came  face  to  face  with  a  board  partition,  an  iron  gate 
apparently  locked,  and  a  push  button  with  a  small  sign 
above  it,  reading  "  Ring.'* 

So  we  rang  and  after  a  time  there  appeared  a  youth 
that  regarded  us  with  manifest  contempt  and  then  said, 
out  of  one  side  of  his  mouth,  "  Well,  whadda  youse  want  ?  " 
We  said  we  wished  to  see  the  city  editor.  With  his  left 
hand  he  flung  at  us  a  small  card  thus  worded : 


Mr. 


wishes  to  see  the  City  Editor 
about  


188- 


With  which  he  vanished.  One  of  us  filled  out  the  blank 
as  best  he  could,  stating  that  we  were  experienced  news- 
paper men  and  had  called  to  mention  to  the  city  editor  our 

34 


The  Man  out  of  Work 

willingness  to  accept  positions  with  the  Herald  if  sufficient 
inducements  were  offered.  This,  the  youth  having  returned, 
we  intrusted  to  his  care.  After  a  long  interval  he  reap- 
peared and  this  was  his  remark: 

"  Hey,  youse !  City  editor  says  he  regrets  t'  say  there's 
no  vacancy  on  the  Herald  staff." 

Whereupon  he  disappeared. 

Assuredly  this  was  not  a  promising  beginning.  Yet  we 
hoped  for  better  things  elsewhere,  and  not  discouraged 
we  tramped  down  the  iron  stairs  and  turned  toward  the 
next  office.  If  we  could  talk  with  the  city  editor  we  should 
certainly  win,  for  then  we  could  explain  fully  about  our 
qualifications  and  the  important  work  we  had  done.  But 
as  long  as  he  would  not  see  us,  of  course,  after  all,  the 
loss  was  his. 

The  next  point  of  attack  was,  I  think,  the  World,  There 
was  an  elevator  in  the  World  office,  which  we  took  to  be 
a  good  sign,  but  when  we  were  emitted  from  it  on  the 
top  floor,  we  found  our  way  barred  by  two  youths  instead 
of  one,  and  these  no  less  ready  with  the  blank  to  be  filled 
out,  which  was  duly  returned  to  us  with  the  same  comment 
we  had  heard  in  the  Herald  office.  This  began  to  look 
serious.  It  seemed  still  more  serious  when  in  the  classic 
phraseology  to  which  we  were  growing  accustomed,  we 
had  been  "  chased  '*  successively  from  the  offices  of  the 
Sun,  the  Times,  and  the  Tribune.  The  identity  of  our 
experiences  began  to  impress  itself  even  upon  our  dull 
minds.  Evidently,  then,  it  was  the  practice  of  city  editors 
not  to  see  applicants  for  positions.  We  could  hardly  grasp 
the  fact,  yet  it  seemed  quite  true.  We  had  pictured  our- 
selves walking  up  to  the  city  editor's  desk,  sitting  down 
with  him  in  cordial  discourse,  and  impressing  him  with 
the  advantages  that  we  offered.    Instead  of  which  the  only 

$5 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

persons  we  impressed  were  some  extremely  uncouth  boys 
upon  whom  the  impression  so  far  had  been  one  of  scornful 
amusement.  How  on  earthy  then,  did  one  secure  a  position 
in  New  York?  And  how  on  earth  did  the  city  editors  do 
business?  The  day  closed  with  a  rebuff  at  the  last  of 
the  morning  newspaper  offices;  until  the  morrow  nothing 
could  be  done  with  the  evening  journals;  and  we  went 
back  to  the  hotel  in  thoughtful  mood. 

One  thing  at  least  was  clear.  We  must  reduce  our  ex- 
penses. At  the  rate  we  were  then  living  a  few  more  days 
would  see  us  stranded.  We  scanned  the  advertisements 
of  rooms  to  let,  picked  out  one  in  the  remote  regions  of 
Brooklyn  on  no  other  ground  than  that  it  was  cheap,  and 
the  next  morning  having  paid  our  bill  (with  inward  groans) 
we  moved  our  one  trunk  to  the  Brooklyn  address  and  took 
possession  of  our  room.  It  was  in  the  rear,  it  was  small, 
barren,  and  hot;  its  windows  commanded  only  an  ex- 
panse of  untidy  back  yards,  and  I  confess  I  looked  at  it 
with  sharp  dismay.  However,  there  we  were,  and  having 
paid  a  week's  room  rent  in  advance,  we  returned  to  the 
siege. 

In  this  unfruitful  pursuit  we  now  passed  day  upon  day 
until  we  had  been  turned  away  from  every  daily  news- 
paper office  in  the  city  and  from  the  offices  of  several 
weeklies.  More  than  once  we  went  the  rounds  but  the 
result  was  invariable.  The  evening  papers  were  con- 
ducted, we  soon  found,  in  the  same  way  as  the  morning 
papers;  the  applicant  could  not  break  away  into  the  city 
editor's  presence,  but  always  the  grinning  office  boy,  whom 
we  came  to  hate  as  well  as  to  dread,  returned  the  one  stereo- 
typed refusal.  They  seemed  to  be  a  species  of  human 
parrot,  those  boys;  they  had  learned,  apparently  from  a 
common  source,  but  two  phrases  of  man's  speech.     One 

36 


The  Man  out  of  Work 

was  "  Well,  whadda  youse  want  ?  "  and  the  other  "  City 
editor  says  no  vacancy  on  the  staff/* 

At  the  time  this  seemed  to  me  a  most  intolerable  in- 
justice and  piece  of  snobbery  that,  knowing  nothing  of  the 
reasons  for  it,  I  was  never  weary  of  denouncing.  I 
hope  I  shall  not  appear  more  variable  than  the  average 
man  when  I  admit  that  when  I  became  city  editor  I 
followed  exactly  the  same  practice  without  the  least  thought 
of  the  days  when  I  was  a  humble  and  an  unsuccessful 
applicant  for  an  audience.  But  in  these  tangled  currents 
the  point  of  view  is  easily  shifted.  I  must  fear,  too,  that 
perhaps  I  was,  on  the  whole,  rather  less  accessible  than 
some  of  the  men  that  I  had  once  denounced.  This  was 
doubtless  inconsistent  with  my  professions,  but  it  was  quite 
consistent  with  what  I  have  been  able  to  observe  of  human 
nature. 

We  did  succeed  in  getting  a  sight  of  one  of  the  remote 
and  sacred  city  editorial  tribe.  It  was  at  the  office  of  the 
old  Commercial  Advertiser,  then  published  from  a  frightful 
barrack  at  the  corner  of  Fulton  and  Nassau  Streets.  With 
reason  I  use  the  phrase;  the  old  shell  burned  down  after- 
ward and  killed  five  or  six  persons.  It  was  at  the  close 
of  the  day's  work  when  we  called  (for  the  third  time, 
I  think)  at  this  dismal  den.  The  city  editor  must  have 
had  a  good  day,  or  perhaps  he  was  just  going  home.  At 
least  he  came  out,  and  proved  to  be  no  dragon  but  very 
much  like  other  men,  only  somehow  curter  of  speech  and 
warier  of  manner,  as  if  he  deemed  everyone  he  met  to  be 
intent  upon  some  device  of  evil.  He  was  good  enough 
to  explain  that  in  the  summer  work  was  slack  and  he 
always  let  men  go.  But  (looking  us  over  with  a  glance 
that  seemed  to  take  in  every  detail),  we  might  come  back 
in  the  fall:  perhaps  there  would  be  a  chance  then. 

S7 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

By  this  time  our  money  was  all  spent^  we  were  in  arrears 
of  rent  for  our  room^  and  the  few  coins  by  which  we  ob- 
tained food  and  street-car  fares  were  secured  from  the 
pawn-shops.  One  by  one  we  pawned  every  article  of 
value  about  us  and  then  began  on  such  wearing  apparel 
as  we  could  for  the  time  dispense  with.  Meanwhile  we 
labored  with  assiduity  to  earn  something  with  our  pens. 
Looking  back  now  impartially  I  cannot  really  think  that 
we  failed  in  any  way  to  deserve  success;  we  practiced  all 
the  virtues.  Night  after  night  we  sat  in  our  hot  rear 
room^  under  a  blazing  gas  jet,  writing  sketches,  stories, 
poems,  Sunday  specials,  paragraphs,  and  (with  humilia- 
tion I  own  it!)  even  puns.  The  days  were  spent  in  ped- 
dling these  and  in  search  for  that  evanescent  job.  Most 
of  our  literary  efforts  were  flung  back  upon  our  hands. 
In  a  fit  of  cynical  desperation  we  had  begun  to  cover  our 
walls  with  the  printed  forms  wherewith  the  editors  notified 
us  of  the  rejection  of  our  manuscripts.  It  proved  but 
sorry  sport,  the  accumulation  before  long  becoming  too 
appalling  to  be  funny.  Sometimes  we  sold  a  little  Sunday 
article  or  a  Saturday  special  for  an  evening  paper  and  got 
a  few  dollars,  and  we  were  always  on  the  lookout  for 
news  that  we  could  sell.  I  remember  once  a  chance  remark 
that  my  companion  heard  on  a  street-car  turned  out  to 
be  a  news  item  for  which  the  Sun  paid  a  dollar  and  a  half. 

I  had  often  heard  about  men  that  were  said  to  be  **  out 
of  work,"  but  until  this  experience  I  had  never  sensed 
any  part  of  the  true  meaning  of  the  phrase.  Many  another 
phrase  that  passes  idly  from  lip  to  lip  has  with  it  horrors 
of  meaning  similarly  unknown  to  the  uninitiated;  for  noth- 
ing teaches  life  but  life.  In  a  vague  way  I  had  gathered 
that  to  be  **  out  of  work  "  was  deemed  a  misft)rtune,  but 
only   experience   could  instruct   me   in  its   grim   realities. 


The  Man  out  of  Work 

The  awakening  in  the  morning  from  happy  unconsciousness 
to  the  sickening  sense  of  another  day  of  anxieties;  the 
revolt  of  the  bruised  mind  against  the  unavoidable  trial 
at  hand;  the  struggle  to  gather  courage;  the  wild,  hys- 
terical longing  to  come  by  the  peace  and  content  of  other 
days;  the  dreary  sfart  upon  the  search;  the  hesitation  and 
dread  before  each  door ;  the  application  made  with  a  miser- 
able pretense  of  easy  confidence;  the  curt  refusal;  the 
shamed  exit  from  the  gaze  of  happier  men  that  have  the 
precious  boon  of  work ;  and  the  home-coming  at  night,  tired 
and  defeated  and  ill- fed  and  struggling  with  black  despair; 
I  declare  to  you  that  no  man  may  know  what  all  this  is 
until  he  has  passed  through  Jt,^  nor  having  learned  thus 
of  it  may  in  any  words  speak  adequately  of  its  terrors. 
Since  that  season  of  humiliation  and  pain  I  have  never 
been  able  to  so  much  as  hear  the  phrase  *'  out  of  work  '* 
without  a  suggestion  of  the  old  sinking  at  the  heart,  the 
feeling  of  defeat  and  isolation,  as  if  I  were  again  com- 
ing from  a  day  of  rebuffs  and  reversals  to  the  hot  at- 
mosphere of  that  rear  room  in  East  New  York.  For 
all  the  years  that  have  passed  the  physical  feeling  still 
returns  upon  me,  a  fact  from  which  you  may  gauge  the 
bitterness  of  the  original  experience. 

The  sense  of  isolation  was  a  stinging  part  of  the  sufferings 
laid  upon  me.  To  walk  idle  in  the  midst  of  throngs  so 
vast  and  so  busy  marked  me  as  a  being  apart  and  uncanny. 
Other  men  had  work  and  a  rational  share  in  the  world's 
activities.  I  alone  could  win  no  place  therein.  I  know 
not  how  I  can  convey  to  you  the  horrible  feeling  that 
weighed  upon  me  at  the  thought.  I  was  not  only  alone 
but  I  must  be  peculiar  or  lacking  in  what  all  other  men 
possessed.  In  after  years  there  came  across  my  attention 
scores  of  cases  where  men  out  of  work  had  ended  their 

S9 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

lives,,  and  recalling  (with  an  inward  shudder)  what  I 
myself  had  endured,  I  could  understand  perfectly  why 
they  had  given  up  in  despair. 

To  my  other  sufferings  was  added  an  accursed  habit 
of  introspection  that  now  returned  upon  and  came  near 
to  undoing  me.  Every  man  has,  I  suppose,  lingering  some- 
where in  his  mind  a  latent  conviction  that  he  is  a  failure 
and  a  dullard.  However  much  in  ordinary  seasons  vanity 
may  be  able  to  silence  this  grewsome  intruder,  I  believe 
it  comes  forth  whenever  the  world  goes  awry.  Upon  me 
it  now  descended  at  times  with  irresistible  force.  New 
York  afforded  the  indisputable  test;  New  York  had  found 
me  out;  in  my  complacent  vanity  I  had  thrust  myself  into 
the  very  community  too  wise  to  be  deceived,  and  deservedly 
I  had  been  branded  with  the  one  word  in  the  language  that 
burns  the  deepest.     I  was  a  failure. 

Yet,  even  this  harsh  and  acrid  adversity  had  its  sweet 
use  of  tuition.  I  began  to  suspect  for  the  first  time  the 
sanity  of  the  arrangement  that  compelled  men  to  ask  in  vain 
for  work.  I  saw  that  in  spite  of  the  enforced  idleness 
about  me,  the  world  had  no  end  of  work  that  ought  to  be 
done,  and  I  laid  hold  of  the  fundamental  truth  that 
work  ought  not  to  be  a  privilege,  or  a  boon;  work  is  a 
right;  men  are  as  much  entitled  to  it  as  to  air  and  light; 
without  it  can  be  no  physical,  mental,  nor  moral  health; 
and  the  spectacle  of  the  endless  stream  of  idle  men  with 
whom  I  was  driven  now  to  associate  in  coffee  houses  and 
at  free  luncheon  bars  seemed  to  me  a  black  indictment 
of  society.  Why  lay  the  needless  curse  of  compulsory  idle- 
ness upon  the  needless  curse  of  compulsory  poverty  ? 

1  wrote  a  letter  once  a  week  for  the  Detroit  Sunday 
Tribune,  for  which  I  was  to  be  paid  at  the  munificent  rate 
of  three  dollars  each.    The  payments  were  long  overdue  and 

40 


The  Man  out  of  Work 

yet  so  nervous  and  fearful  had  we  become  that  I  did  not  dare 
to  write  in  complaint  lest  I  should  lose  this  slender  raft 
of  hope.  For  the  sake  of  appearances  I  had  an  address 
in  New  York  and  I  awoke  one  morning  in  our  poor  little 
Brooklyn  room  with  an  innate  conviction  that  my  check 
had  arrived.  We  had  between  us  just  twelve  cents,  which 
would  enable  us  to  reach  New  York  (by  elevated  railroad 
and  ferry)  provided  we  were  expeditious  and  arrived  at 
the  ferry  house  before  nine  o'clock,  after  which  hour  the 
fare  was  two  cents  instead  of  one.  If  the  check  should 
not  be  there,  we  had  no  way  of  returning  to  Brooklyn,  for 
in  those  days  the  promenade  on  the  bridge  was  not  free. 
Nevertheless  we  took  the  chance,  made  our  way  to  New 
York,  and  found  the  check  all  right.  The  next  problem 
was  how  to  get  the  money  on  it.  Nelson,  my  fellow-sufferer, 
agreed  to  wait  at  the  corner  of  Fulton  and  South  Streets 
while  I  made  my  way  to  the  bank  on  which  the  check 
was  drawn,  situated  at  the  very  foot  of  Broadway.  With 
extreme  trepidation  in  view  of  what  was  involved,  I  pre- 
sented the  check  at  the  paying  teller's  window.  The  doors 
had  just  been  opened  and  I  was  the  only  customer  in 
sight.  The  teller  picked  up  the  check,  flipped  it  over,  and 
flipped  it  back  to  me. 

"  Don't  know  you,  Mr.  Russell,"  he  said,  and  waved  me 
aside. 

"  I  know  you  don't,"  I  said,  making  a  desperate  attempt 
to  be  jocular,  "but  you  ought  to.  I'm  a  good  fellow 
to  know." 

Strange  to  say,  he  seemed  to  thaw  a  little  at  this,  for 
the  shadow  of  a  smile  hovered  about  his  mouth.    He  said: 

"  You  will  have  to  get  someone  that  we  know  to  identify 
you." 

"  My  dear  sir,"  I  said,  **  I  don't  know  a  soul  in  New 

41 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

York,  but  I  have  here  some  letters  that  may  satisfy  you," 
and  making  this  last  chanceful  play,  I  drew  forth  a  package 
of  papers. 

"  Nothing  will  do  but  an  endorsement  by  someone  we 
know,*'  he  said,  but  his  eye  ran  over  the  envelopes  never- 
theless.   Most  of  them  were  from  Detroit. 

**  Do  you  live  in  Detroit?  *'  he  asked  with  a  sudden 
access  of  interest. 

"  I  did  until  a  month  ago,"  I  said. 

"  Tell  me  about  that  nine  they've  got  there  this  year," 
he  said,  leaning  eagerly  toward  the  window. 

The  man  was  a  baseball  fan!  It  happened  that  Detroit 
that  year  had  secured  players  of  phenomenal  excellence 
and  all  the  baseball  world  was  eager  to  know  about  their 
performances.  Baseball  was  the  teller's  one  joy  in  life. 
I  was  myself  an  old  player  and  as  much  in  love  with  the 
game  as  he.  I  told  him  about  the  Detroit  stars  until  the 
customers  began  to  accumulate  behind  me. 

"  Give  me  that  check,"  said  the  teller  suddenly.  **  I'll 
take  the  chance.  Here  you  are  " — and  he  counted  out  the 
money. 

I  clutched  it  and  ran.  At  Fulton  and  South  Streets  still 
waited  poor  Nelson,  all  but  famished,  for  neither  of  us 
had  had  breakfast.  We  dashed  into  Sweet's  restaurant 
near  by  and  ordered  ham  and  eggs  and  coffee,  these  being 
both  cheap  and  filling. 

It  was  by  such  narrow  margins  that  we  made  our  way. 
We  owed  for  our  room  but  the  landlady,  a  good,  sym- 
pathetic soul,  gave  us  to  know  that  we  need  not  pay  her 
until  we  found  work.  On  such  scraps  of  writing  as  we 
could  sell  we  lived,  sometimes  eating  that  succulent  dish 
known  as  "  biff  an',"  *  sometimes  in  rare  moments  of  good 
*  Park  Row  vernacular  for  a  plate  of  corned  beef  and  beans. 

42 


The  Man  out  of  Work 

fortune  dining  on  a  small  steak  at  Sweet's.  The  cheap 
eating  houses  around  Park  Row  were  a  haven  of  refuge. 
"  Biff  an' "  cost  but  ten  cents ;  three  indigestible  wads 
of  dough  known  by  the  expressive  name  of  **  sinkers," 
cost  but  five.  When  one  had  partaken  of  these  dainties 
he  seldom  craved  for  more  within  the  next  four  or  five 
hours.  If  his  wealth  included  another  five-cent  piece  and 
he  drank  on  top  a  cup  of  paralyzing  tea  his  hunger  might 
be  appeased  for  the  better  part  of  a  day. 

So  the  weeks  dragged  by  without  a  change  in  the  pros- 
pect, without  a  change  in  our  situation  except  that  it  seemed 
to  grow  worse,  until  we  began  to  be  assailed  with  the 
conviction  that  the  newspaper  business  in  New  York  was 
closed  against  us.  A  venture  as  advertising  solicitors 
brought  upon  our  heads  a  failure  both  humiliating  and 
ridiculous  and  came  near  to  complete  our  discomfiture. 
It  appeared  that  we  were  of  an  alien  race  and  a  hated, 
for  we  could  approach  no  one  on  any  subject  without 
being  snarled  at,  and  in  the  end,  repeated  rebuffs,  that 
seemed  to  us  couched  in  terms  malicious  and  brutal,  broke 
our  spirits. 

In  fact,  we  reached  on  this  subject  such  a  degree  of 
nervousness  that  when  with  nickel  in  hand  we  approached 
a  bartender  for  the  glass  of  beer  that  convoyed  the  neces- 
sary free  luncheon  we  were  moved  to  propitiate  him — ^not 
always  without  reason.  The  final  blow  came  when  I  ob- 
tained from  a  St.  Louis  trade  journal  a  commission  (worth 
three  dollars)  to  write  a  3,000  word  letter  puffing  its  New 
York  advertisers  and  these  advertisers,  being  made  aware  of 
my  errand,  drove  me  from  their  presence  with  gratuitous 
abuse.  After  that  it  seemed  that  the  laws  of  nature  were 
reversed  and  the  whole  world  was  banded  against  us. 

My  companion  now  saw  plainly  that  so  far  as  the  news- 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

paper  business  was  concerned  the  game  was  up.  In  some 
way  he  learned  that  there  was  a  vacancy  in  the  Brooklyn 
post-office  in  the  staff  of  emergency  letter  carriers.  He 
applied  for  it  and  was  busy  at  night  preparing  to  take 
the  necessary  examination.  I  cherished  in  those  days  a 
favorite  resort  to  which,  when  I  was  tired  and  unusually 
depressed,  I  went  for  rest  and  quiet.  A  short  distance  be- 
low Fulton  ferry  was  a  long  open  wharf  at  which  tied 
up  the  great  American  sailing  clippers  that  then  plied 
around  Cape  Horn.  On  the  string  piece  of  this  wharf 
at  its  outer  edge  I  could  always  be  alone  and  draw  some 
diversion  from  the  busy  scenes  about  me.  I  remember 
sitting  there  one  bright  afternoon  in  August.  We  had  now 
been  in  New  York  two  months.  We  had  achieved  nothing 
but  defeat  and  disaster;  we  had  no  money  nor  the  means 
of  making  it;  we  were  much  in  debt.  Clearly  we  had  made 
a  huge  blunder  when  we  left  the  West,  where  we  were 
among  our  own  people;  but  without  money  how  could 
we  make  our  way  West  again?  There  flashed  across  me 
then  a  recollection  of  Scotty  riding  on  trucks  and  bumpers 
and  breaking  into  freight  cars.  I  had  but  a  slight  idea  of 
the  way  such  things  were  done.  **  Other  men  have  done 
them,"  I  said,  "  and  if  I  am  a  failure  as  a  newspaper  man, 
I  may  be  a  success  as  a  tramp.  I'll  talk  it  over  with 
Nelson." 

There  was  loading  at  that  wharf  that  day  the  great 
ship  St.  Francis;  gangs  of  longshoremen  were  sweating  at 
the  task,  the  whole  wharf  resounding  with  their  activities 
and  the  noise  of  two  donkey  engines.  Up  and  down  the 
river  I  could  see  other  wharfs  with  other  gangs  of  men 
similarly  employed.  Behind  me  the  city  roared  witH 
varied  industry,  trucks  in  unending  procession  hammered 
over  the  paving  stones,  crowds  of  eager-faced  men  pressed 

44 


The  Man  out  of  Work 

along  the  sidewalks.  The  old  heavy-weighted  thought  re- 
turned. Was  it  not  strange  that  in  the  midst  of  this  cease- 
less and  incalculable  tumult  of  work^  I  should  be  appar- 
ently the  one  figure  for  whom  there  was  no  use?  Men 
were  wanted  to  load  ships,  to  drive  street-cars,  to  handle 
trucks.  But  I  was  not  wanted  for  anything,  I  alone  of 
so  many  thousands,  and  why  was  that?  If  other  men 
had  a  place  in  this  world  of  work,  why  had  I  none  ?  It 
must  be  because  the  work  that  I  desired  to  do  had  no 
relation  to  any  legitimate  need  of  mankind  but  was  a  thing 
extraneous  and  dispensable.  Then  my  companion  was  right. 
Better  to  be  a  letter  carrier,  even  an  emergency  letter  car- 
rier, and  do  something  that  society  needed  to  have  done  than 
to  write  the  most  beautiful  newspaper  story  that  was  ever 
embalmed  in  print.  I  had  a  trade;  with  a  little  practice 
I  could  become  sufficiently  expert  in  it;  and  I  resolved  to 
seek  the  next  day  some  avenue  of  employment  as  a  printer. 

In  this  frame  of  mind  I  arose  from  the  string  piece  much 
relieved  and  made  my  way  briskly  along  Fulton  Street 
toward  Broadway.  I  had  no  definite  idea  whither  I  was 
going,  but  a  mood  of  activity  had  succeeded  to  a  mood 
of  inertia.  At  the  corner  of  Broadway  I  encountered 
almost  the  only  newspaperman  with  whom  I  had  been  able 
to  make  acquaintance.  He  asked  me  if  I  had  found  a 
job  yet. 

"  I  haven*t,"  I  said,  "  and  I  have  given  up  hope  of  one. 
I  guess  there  are  no  more  newspaper  jobs — at  least  for 
me." 

"  Then  here's  your  chance,"  says  he.  **  I  met  the  man-- 
aging  editor  of  the  Commercial  Advertiser  to-day  and  he 
told  me  he  wanted  a  man." 

"  Where  is  he?  "  I  cried.  "  Where  is  this  marvel?  Let 
me  see  him  before  he  gets  away." 

45 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

"  He's  gone  home  now,  but  you  lay  for  him  at  his  office 
the  first  thing  to-morrow  morning.  Be  early — there'll  be 
a  shoal  of  men  after  that  job  as  soon  as  it  is  known/* 

Be  early!  I  was  up  before  daybreak;  I  was  at  the 
elevated  railroad  stairs  before  the  trains  had  begun  to  run. 
When  I  arrived  in  front  of  the  Commercial  Advertiser  office 
the  janitor  had  not  opened  the  building.  I  was  waiting 
there  when  he  came  and  began  to  sweep  off  the  sidewalk, 
when  the  elevator  man  started  the  hoisting  apparatus,  when 
the  fiendish  office  boy  slouched  up  and  unlocked  the  edi- 
torial department  doors.  I  was  sitting  there  in  the  ante- 
room when  the  city  editor  and  his  assistants  arrived,  when 
the  reporters  came  in,  when  the  bustle  of  the  day  awoke. 
I  was  there  when  the  managing  editor  came  and  I  seized 
him  by  the  arm  as  he  went  by.  Twenty  minutes  later, 
exultation  struggling  with  self-distrust,  I  was  in  the  city 
room,  a  member  of  the  staff  waiting  for  an  assignment. 
I  had  found  work  at  last. 


46 


IV 

THE  STREETS  AND  THE  ISLAND^  THE  ISLAND  AND  THE  STREETS 

The  journal  to  which  I  had  thus  joined  my  humble 
fortunes  was  of  a  kind  as  extinct  now  as  the  dodo.  It 
consisted  of  four  pages  of  ten  columns  each,  was  printed 
directly  from  the  type  without  stereotyping,  and  on  a 
quaint,  lumbering  old  press  fondly  and  reasonably  known 
as  **  the  type  founders*  friend."  The  columns  were  of  an 
inordinate  length  (in  the  expressive  office  phrase,  "  as  long 
as  from  here  to  the  Battery  ")  and  the  whole  appearance 
of  the  sheet  was  of  a  huge,  unwieldy  blanket  presenting 
an  illimitable  desert  of  type,  for  there  were  no  illustrations. 

In  those  good  days  all  reporters*  work  in  New  York 
was  paid  for  at  space  rates.  On  the  Commercial  Advertiser 
the  rate  was  four  dollars  and  thirty-two  cents  a  column. 
The  reason  for  the  thirty-two  cents  I  was  never  able  to 
fathom,  but  I  have  no  doubt  it  had  some  reference  to  econ- 
omy, which  was  the  watchword  of  the  management.  Con- 
sidering the  length  of  the  columns  the  pay  could  hardly  be 
called  princely.  Many  a  gallant  spirit  has  gone  down  in  a 
brave  but  futile  attempt  to  fill  those  columns,  and  you  will 
not  be  astonished  to  learn  that  some  men  on  the  staff  at  the 
end  of  a  week's  toil  found  they  had  on  their  strings  no  more 
than  five  dollars. 

There  was,  besides,  a  feature  of  the  employment  that 
in  any  other  branch  of  industry  would  have  produced  re- 
volt.    On  all  the  other  newspapers  of  New  York  a  time 

47 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

allowance  was  part  of  the  space  system;  that  is  to  say, 
if  a  reporter  were  sent  out  upon  an  assignment  and  no 
space  resulted  for  him  he  was  entitled  to  charge  by  the 
hour  for  the  time  he  had  spent  upon  the  work — usually 
at  the  rate  of  fifty  cents  an  hour.  On  the  Commercial 
Advertiser  there  was  no  time  allowance;  therefore  a  re- 
porter might  spend  days  in  hard  and  conscientious  labor 
and  for  no  fault  of  his  own  receive  not  a  cent  for  it  all. 
Nay^  he  might  be  out  of  pocket  a  considerable  sum ;  for  in 
a  city  so  long  and  narrow  as  New  York  very  few  assign- 
ments can  be  covered  on  f oot^  and  in  those  days  the  elevated 
railroad  fare  was  ten  cents.  Soon  after  I  went  to  work 
on  the  paper  a  young  man  in  the  cashier's  office  stole  a  few 
dollars.  The  management  was  very  indignant  at  this  young 
man  and  insisted  upon  punishing  him.  But  the  manage- 
ment had  no  objection  to  stealing  the  labor  of  its  employees 
many  times  every  day. 

Add  to  these  untoward  conditions  the  fact  that  the 
absence  of  a  time  allowance  was  to  the  city  editor  an 
almost  irresistible  temptation  to  send  out  men  on  precarious 
assignments  that  were  merely  long  shots^  and  I  think  the 
combination  hardly  equaled  in  newspaper  history,  in- 
deed^ I  regard  the  mere  existence  of  that  staff  as  the 
greatest  marvel  I  have  ever  encountered;  for  it  was  not, 
as  you  might  surmise,  composed  of  the  outcasts  and  hap- 
hazard men  of  the  profession,  but  contained  unusual  ability. 
One  of  the  reporters  was  a  poet  whose  clever  verses  are 
in  all  the  American  anthologies;  two  subsequently  became 
metropolitan  publishers;  one  is  to-day  the  head  of  a  great 
transportation  system;  one  is  a  financier;  at  least  a  dozen 
rose  to  high  rank  in  the  newspaper  world.  Yet  they  labored 
there,  most  of  them,  for  a  smaller  wage  than  street-car 
drivers  received.     Even  the  officers  of  the  battalion  were 

48 


The  Streets  and  the  Island 

wretchedly  paid.  The  city  editor  received  twenty-five  dol- 
lars a  week;  the  managing  editor  forty  dollars;  the  editor- 
in-chief  but  little  more.  One  influence  that  held  us  together 
was  the  general  affection  and  respect  for  the  editor,  George 
Gary  Eggleston.  We  saw  that  he  was  on  our  side  and  if 
he  had  been  allowed  would  have  dealt  fairly  with  us;  and 
his  personal  magnetism,  tact,  good  nature,  and  sympathy 
salved  many  hurts. 

This  slow,  dull,  respectable  journal  had  a  small  cir- 
culation, chiefly  confined,  I  think,  to  old  residents  of  the 
conservative  and  wealthy  sort.  It  was  a  common  experi- 
ence with  us  reporters  to  be  obliged  to  explain  that  the 
Commercial  Advertiser  was  a  newspaper  and  that  it  was 
published  in  New  York.  I  remember  that  on  one  occasion 
it  was  spurred  to  a  memorable  display  of  enterprise.  On 
the  same  morning  and  at  about  the  same  time  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  died  and  a  strange  disaster  with  many  fatalities 
happened  on  the  Second  Avenue  Elevated  Railroad.  The 
combination  was  too  much  for  the  old  concern  and  drove 
it  to  put  down  its  head,  throw  its  venerable  heels  in  the 
air,  and  cavort  like  one  of  its  youthful  contemporaries.  In 
the  height  of  its  excitement  it  issued  an  extra  (the  only  one 
within  my  knowledge  of  it)  of  which  seven  copies  were  sold. 

We  of  the  staff  were  supposed  to  arrive  at  the  office  at 
eight  o'clock  in  the  morning.  There  was  one  edition  at 
one  o'clock  and  another  at  four,  the  first  being  (apparently) 
for  the  purpose  of  allowing  the  management  to  correct  the 
reporters'  English,  about  which  was  much  ado.  After  the 
appearance  of  the  second  edition  we  were  released,  having 
conscientiously  contributed  eight  hours  of  labor  and  earned 
perhaps  as  much  as  seventy-five  cents. 

My  first  assignment  was  to  cover  the  Jefferson  Market 
police  court,  which  is  hardly  the  billet  I  should  myself 

49 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

select  for  a  reporter  new  to  the  city  and  its  ways.  I  had 
an  idea  that  when  we  reported  a  police  court  we  sat  at  a 
table  and  took  notes  of  the  evidence,  but  in  the  first  two 
minutes  I  was  disabused  of  any  such  error.  I  learned 
that  most  of  the  proceedings  were  conducted  sotto  voce 
and  the  only  way  to  acquire  knowledge  of  them  was  to 
crowd  in  as  near  as  possible  before  the  magistrate  and 
catch  what  one  could  while  the  line  of  miserables  passed 
before  one.  As  the  line  moved  rather  quickly  and  the 
hearings  were  of  the  briefest,  one  could  only  gather  an 
impression  of  the  cases  that  might  be  interesting  and  look 
them  up  afterward  in  the  papers  filed  with  the  clerks. 

Court  opens  about  half-past  eight.  By  that  time  there 
is  a  line  of  prisoners  extending  from  directly  in  front  of 
the  magistrate's  bench  back  to  the  prison  door  and  by  the 
side  of  this  line  is  another  line  of  the  policemen  that  have 
made  the  arrests,  each  convoying  a  prisoner.  The  door 
behind  the  bench  suddenly  opens.  Officer  Curry,  a  very 
fat  and  wheezy  policeman,  pipes  out,  **  Hats  off  in  court !  '* 
and  the  magistrate,  advancing  swiftly  to  his  seat,  says 
as  he  comes: 

"  S'lemnly  swear  affidavit  by  you  s*scribed  's  true  so 
help  y*  God  what  about  this  man  ?  " 

By  the  time  he  has  said  the  word  **  man  "  he  has  taken 
his  seat  and  reached  for  the  first  of  the  affidavits  which  the 
clerk  has  neatly  piled  by  his  right  hand. 

The  policeman  briefly  recites  that  he  found  this  man 
drunk  and  unable  to  care  for  himself. 

**  Five  dollars,**  says  the  judge  and  makes  a  scratch  with 
his  pen.  **  Stand  down,'*  says  Curry,  while  the  magistrate 
utters  again  the  formula  about  the  affidavit  and  the  process 
is  repeated. 

It  will  be  admitted  that  to  a  reporter  down  there  wedged 

50 


The  Streets  and  the  Island 

behind  the  policemen  that  were  testifying,  policemen 
that  were  waiting  to  testify,  and  Officer  Curry's  expansive 
person,  not  much  of  this  swift  rigmarole  could  be  caught, 
and  yet  it  furnished  all  the  material  offered  to  us  for  a 
judgment  whether  the  case  were  of  interest  and  worth 
the  trouble  of  searching  the  papers  after  adjournment. 
Very  little  opportunity  existed  to  take  notes,  and  the  task 
laid  upon  one's  memory  and  swift  apprehension  was  not 
light,  although  its  difficulties  were  eased  by  the  development 
of  the  sixth  sense  that  so  often  comes  to  one's  rescue  in 
emergencies.  I  mean  that  we  learned  to  detect  by  instinct 
the  few  available  incidents  from  the  vast  monotonous  flood 
of  misery  that  daily  passed  before  the  bench,  and  upon 
this  instinct  we  proceeded. 

Two  impressions  were  very  strong  upon  me.  The  first 
was  the  marvelous  rapidity  with  which  the  cases  were 
judged.  The  sitting  magistrate  was  named  Solon  B.  Smith: 
a  spare,  keen  man,  cold,  poised,  and  with  a  manifest  desire 
to  be  just.  He  seemed  to  be  like  a  skillful  and  experienced 
diagnostician,  passing  upon  symptoms  so  familiar  that  he 
recognized  them,  or  thought  he  recognized  them,  with  hardly 
a  glance.  On  this  faculty  he  seemed  to  rely  more  than 
upon  the  testimony,  which  often  was  plainly  false.  The 
policeman  would  swear  to  one  story,  the  saloon  keeper 
or  fighting  woman  to  an  explicit  contradiction,  and  the 
magistrate  sweeping  botK*  with  one  keen  look  from  behind 
his  spectacles  would  cut  them  short  with  a  curt  and  icy 
decision.  The  swiftness  of  these  judgments  at  first  appalled 
me:  the  line  of  prisoners  might  be  said  hardly  to  stand 
still,  but  to  move  from  one  door  to  another,  receiving  judg- 
ment as  it  passed.  It  was  in  a  way  a  ludicrous  thought 
and  in  another  it  was  not  in  the  least  funny  but  a  spur  to 
grave  reflections.     These  were  the  innumerable  wrecks  of 

51 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

society  under  its  existing  system,  and  all  society  cared  about 
them  was  to  get  them  out  of  its  sight  as  quickly  as  possible. 
It  made  them  what  they  were  and  then  hustled  them  to  the 
Island.  A  vast  majority  were  obviously  victims  of  con- 
ditions. Some  were  working  men  out  of  work  and  for 
that  marvelous  offense  herded  to  punishment  with  burglars 
and  pickpockets.  I  will  do  the  magistrates  justice.  As  a 
rule  they  were  kindly  men;  so  far  as  they  could  in  the 
whirl  of  that  swift  machine  they  tried  to  discriminate  in 
favor  of  the  clearest  cases  of  misfortune,  and  to  mitigate 
the  savagery  of  the  methods  they  were  compelled  to  use: 
but  the  sum  of  their  humane  impulses  was  but  little  and 
in  the  main  the  tide  set  evenly  toward  punishment,  merited 
or  unmerited.  The  magistrates  were  in  no  way  to  blame; 
they  were  but  agents  of  a  system  and,  in  all  instances  I 
knew  but  one,  infinitely  better  than  the  system  they  served. 

Another  fact  forced  more  and  more  upon  my  attention 
was  the  vastness  of  the  misery  of  New  York.  I  had  always 
thought  of  poverty  in  my  country  as  rare  and  the  result 
either  of  vice  or  of  idleness.  After  a  time  in  the  police 
court  and  a  variety  of  experience  elsewhere  I  began  to 
see  that  poverty  was  the  condition  of  the  majority  of  the 
people,  with  areas  and  depths  of  which  I  had  never 
dreamed;  and  the  well-to-do  might  be  judged  to  dwell 
upon  an  island  amid  a  black  sea  of  destitution. 

To  this  day  I  know  of  no  spectacle  more  instructive  than 
that  bare  and  filthy  police  court  of  a  morning;  the  long 
line  of  prisoners  gathered  for  all  conceivable  offenses  from 
all  kinds  of  repulsive  regions;  the  benches  filled  with  the 
wives,  children,  friends,  or  fellow-gangsters  of  these;  the 
boys  that  had  been  arrested  for  playing  ball  in  the  streets 
aligned  with  hardened  criminals  and  worse;  the  court  room 
badly  lighted  and  filled  with  mephitic  odors;  the  railings, 

52 


The  Streets  and  the  Island 

the  wainscoting,  and  the  backs  of  the  benches  covered  with 
an  indescribable  greasy  scum  from  a  million  dirty  hands; 
all  visible  aspects  squalid  and  sordid  and  forlorn;  it  seemed 
the  perfect  epitome  of  the  slums,  as  it  was  truly  their 
product. 

Still  more  to  cause  one  to  stop  and  think  was  to  be  found 
in  a  study  of  the  faces  that  came  into  that  room.  What 
struck  me  first  was  their  almost  uniform  pallor.  In  the 
West  whence  I  came  men  and  women  were  ruddy- faced; 
here  everybody  was  pale,  even  the  little  children,  with 
an  odd  tallowy,  bloodless  look.  Then  an  amazing  number 
of  persons  seemed  to  have  unwholesome  faces,  puffed, 
swollen,  distorted,  or  evil,  or  attended  with  the  stigmata 
of  degeneracy.  Especially  the  faces  of  some  of  the  young 
men  struck  a  kind  of  chill  into  me.  They  did  not  seem 
to  be  human  but  to  typify  some  new  kind  of  beast  of 
prey,  and  when  these  youths  talked  or  laughed  their  voices 
and  words  were  as  extraordinary  as  their  faces.  Their 
hair  seemed  to  grow  down  over  their  eyes,  they  had  small 
features  and  narrow  heads,  their  ears  projected  at  wide 
angles,  they  had  small,  shifty  eyes,  and  they  seemed  from 
the  cases  in  which  they  figured  to  be  capable  of  peculiarly 
atrocious  forms  of  wanton  cruelty  and  malice. 

I  had  not  been  long  in  the  court  before  we  had  the 
case  of  the  leader  of  one  of  the  most  notorious  of  these 
east  side  gangs,  by  name  Danny  DriscoU.  He  was  accused 
of  murder  and  was  subsequently  hanged.  As  he  was  sev- 
eral times  before  the  magistrate  on  adjourned  hearings  I 
had  ample  opportunity  to  study  his  appearance,  which 
I  soon  discovered  was  typical  of  his  kind.  He  had  been 
born  in  a  tenement  of  tenement  bred  parents  and  had 
never  known  anything  better  than  the  streets.  He  was 
no  more  than  a  boy  but  he  had  a  girl  mistress  whom  he 

53 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

had  shot  down  cruelly  in  some  wretched  quarrel^  and  he 
now  stood  in  the  shadow  of  the  gallows  with  a  callous 
and  brutish  hardihood  that  turned  the  spectators  cold. 

You  will  perceive  that  my  education  was  proceeding 
apace,  for  these  were  typical  products  of  the  slums  and 
from  the  slums  came  ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  criminal 
cases  that  I  was  called  upon  to  observe.  Custom  and  the 
daily  usage  of  business  harden  one  quickly  to  even  the 
most  dreadful  sights;  but  I  never  could  quite  escape  the 
manifest  illogic  of  the  whole  thing.  From  the  court  we 
daily  peopled  the  workhouse  and  the  prison;  five  other 
courts  were  similarly  employed ;  the  total  of  their  operations 
multiplied  an  enormous  cost  and  represented  totals  still 
more  staggering.  Ninety-five  per  cent  of  all  our  cases, 
whether  arising  from  drink,  criminal  instinct,  need,  des- 
peration, or  what  not,  were  products  of  slum  conditions 
and  arose  from  certain  regions  as  clearly  bordered  and 
defined  as  the  state  of  New  York.  And  yet  while  we  were 
busily  trying  to  thrust  these  products  into  jail  as  fast  as 
they  emerged  from  the  place  where  they  were  made,  no- 
body seemed  to  be  trying  to  stop  the  manufacture. 

Every  day  or  two  the  further  pursuit  of  some  case 
in  court  brought  me  in  close  contact  with  this  process  and 
I  came  to  know  intimately  a  hundred  tenement  district 
streets  never  dreamed  of  by  what  is  called  (in  gross  error) 
the  typical  New  Yorker.  The  summer  was  intensely  hot, 
the  heat  was  aggravated  by  an  unusual  degree  of  humidity, 
and  the  conditions  in  some  of  the  attic  and  rear  tenements 
were  sometimes  nauseating  and  sometimes  calculated  to 
wring  one's  heart  for  pity.  The  tenement  dwellers,  I  am 
sure,  suffer  more  in  the  summer  than  in  the  winter,  how- 
ever cold  the  winter  may  be.  After  much  wandering  in 
many  cUmes  I  am  still  convinced  that  a  New  York  tenement 

54 


The  Streets  and  the  Island 

house  street  on  a  humid  hot  day,  when  the  lungs  pant  for 
air  and  there  is  none  but  such  as  is  fetid,  rank,  steamy, 
and  heated  like  a  furnace  blast,  is  one  of  the  most  dreadful 
places  upon  this  earth.  Instead  of  wondering  that  in  the 
police  court  we  had  so  much  of  crime  I  fell  to  wondering 
that  we  had  so  little,  since  one  could  not  be  astonished 
at  any  products  of  deviltry  that  might  issue  from  such 
places;  and  I  declare  to  you  that  instead  of  gaining  a 
lower  view  of  humanity,  I  gained,  by  this  circuitous  route, 
a  new  respect  for  my  kind  since  not  all  the  dwellers  in 
that  frightful  region  turned  savage. 

A  large  part  of  the  time  of  the  court  was  absorbed  every 
day  with  the  cases  of  the  women  of  the  street,  which 
were  always  handled  with  the  greatest  rapidity  and  about 
like  this: 

' "  S'lmly  swear  aff 'davit  by  you  scribed  's  true  s'help  y* 
God  what  about  this  case  ?  " 

*'  Solicitin'  on  the  street." 

"  Officer  says  y*  were  soliciting  what  Ve  you  got  to  say  ?  " 

"  Nothing." 

"  Ten  dollars." 

So  she  stands  down  and  some  dog-faced  and  be  jeweled 
man  in  the  benches  pays  her  fine  or  she  goes  for  ten  days 
to  the  workhouse  on  Blackwell's  Island. 

At  first  I  was  puzzled  by  the  great  number  of  these 
cases  and  later  by  the  fact  that  the  same  women  so  often 
reappeared  on  the  same  charge,  being  returned  to  the 
Island  almost  immediately  after  their  release  therefrom. 
I  was  led  to  wonder  at  the  utility  of  a  system  that  kept 
them  thus  on  a  circuit  between  the  Island  and  the  streets, 
the  streets  and  the  Island.  They  had  violated  the  law, 
but  the  punishment  inflicted  never  seemed  to  deter  them 
from  continuing  to  violate  the  law  nor  to  deter  others  from 

55 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

violating  the  law^  and  the  whole  thing  seemed  exceedingly 
futile  and  foolish.  Every  day  in  my  experience  we  had 
about  the  same  number  of  these  women  in  courts  but  I 
was  told  that  from  year  to  year  the  number  increased, 
and  the  slightest  observation  of  uptown  streets  after  dark 
showed  the  failure  of  the  court  sentence  to  discourage  their 
activities  or  to  diminish  their  numbers. 

It  seemed  to  me,  on  reflection,  rather  odd  that  in  this 
case,  also,  society  should  be  bent  to  punish  the  inevitable 
product  of  conditions  and  never  think  of  abolishing  the 
conditions.  Yet  the  women  were  a  spectacle  dreadful 
enough  to  warrant  almost  any  amount  of  attention  to  this 
subject;  and  of  a  sudden  it  struck  me  as  strange  that  while 
we  should  try,  even  at  the  risk  of  life,  to  rescue  them, 
let  us  say,  from  a  burning  building,  we  were  utterly  in- 
different to  the  fact  that  their  daily  situation  was  worse 
than  death. 

An  independent  observation  and  experience  tended  some- 
what to  emphasize  my  conclusions  on  this  subject.  I  was 
living  at  the  time  at  a  cheap  Brooklyn  boarding  house. 
One  of  my  fellow-boarders  was  a  young  shop  girl  of  good 
appearance  and  manners.  She  left  after  a  time  to  find 
other  quarters.  One  day  I  was  going  to  a  fire  in  a  red 
light  district  and  this  girl  was  leaning  out  of  the  window 
of  a  dive,  soliciting  the  passers-by.  She  had  gone  the 
pace.  I  suppose  something  of  direct  personal  interest  is 
needed  to  make  the  average  mind  feel  the  truth  about  gen- 
eral conditions.  I  know  I  never  stopped  to  think  much 
about  the  hideous  nature  of  this  particular  evil  until  that 
girl  leered  and  beckoned  at  me  from  a  window  of  per- 
dition. The  stories  of  these  cases  are  one  dun  level  of 
misery;  poor  pay,  hard  work,  dreary  lives,  hopeless  mo- 
notony,  and  the  pit.     I  have  seen  a  waterside  hero  whose 

6Q 


The  Streets  and  the  Island 

breast  was  covered  with  the  medals  of  humane  societies 
for  rescuing  persons  from  drowning,  but  I  have  not  yet 
seen  any  medals  for  this  other  kind  of  rescue  work  that 
would  seem  still  more  important.  In  after  years  I  had 
two  or  three  assignments  concerning  young  women  that 
had  thrown  themselves  into  the  river  and  died  there.  Re- 
membering some  things  I  saw  at  Jefferson  Market  Police 
Court  and  elsewhere  it  seemed  to  me  that  if  they  were 
started  on  that  road  they  were  better  dead,  at  least  so 
long  as  the  best  answer  we  could  find  for  their  problem 
was  to  keep  them  on  the  circuit  between  the  Island  and 
the  streets,  the  streets  and  the  Island. 

Some  assignments  of  those  days  cling  in  my  memory  as 
peculiar  examples  of  the  kind  of  injustice  we  endured  in 
our  relations  with  the  paper.  One  day  a  report  was  cir- 
culated that  the  employees  of  the  Belt  Line  street  railroad, 
which  ran  along  the  North  and  East  River  fronts,  were 
about  to  strike.  Having  an  office  full  of  men  that  he  could 
employ  without  expense,  the  city  editor  dispatched  a  squad 
to  watch  the  line,  each  having  a  section  of  eight  or  ten 
blocks.  What  we  were  to  watch  for  I  do  not  know,  but 
our  instructions  were  to  watch — ^possibly  to  see  if  the  rails 
curled  up  in  the  heat.  I  had  Tenth  Avenue  from  Four- 
teenth Street  to  Desbrosses.  The  day  was  one  of  the 
hottest  on  record  in  New  York,  there  was  no  more  sign 
of  a  strike  or  other  disturbance  than  there  is  in  your  grand- 
mother's boudoir,  and  nothing  for  me  to  do  but  idle  about 
like  a  tramp.  I  sat  on  a  log  at  the  corner  of  Fourteenth 
Street  and  contemplated  one  of  the  dreariest  scenes  in  the 
world.  On  the  other  side  of  the  street  was  a  ramshackle 
old  frame  house,  almost  toppling  over,  that  I  think  was 
occupied  by  the  family  of  a  'longshoreman.  The  good 
man's  shirt,  made  of  flaming  red  flannel,  had  been  washed 

57 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

and  now  hung  upon  a  line  stretched  from  the  front  door. 
You  have  no  idea  how  that  red  shirt  raised  the  temperature 
of  the  arid  spot.  I  could  feel  hot  rays  striking  from 
it  and  every  time  it  swayed  in  the  air  a  wave  of  caloric 
swept  over  the  scene.  The  longshoreman's  children 
swarmed  about  in  breathless  misery.  The  mother  appeared 
at  the  upper  landing  of  a  flight  of  rear  stairs,  washing 
clothes  in  a  tub  of  hot  water,  and  trying  to  keep  the 
children  from  the  wheels  of  the  passing  trucks.  And  I 
sat  there  wondering  why  she  should  be  so  oppressed  about 
their  safety  when  life  for  her  and  her  kind  was  visibly 
cursed  with  a  burden  so  black  and  in  all  the  region 
hope  was  banished. 

There  was  no  strike  on  the  Belt  Line.  I  spent  forty 
cents  and  a  day  at  Fourteenth  Street  and  Tenth  Avenue 
to  find  that  out.  As  there  was  nothing  to  write,  I  received 
nothing  for  the  day  and  lost  the  forty  cents  as  well.  I 
suggested  to  the  city  editor  that  I  should  write  something 
about  that  red  shirt  and  the  children.  He  seemed  likely 
to  faint  at  the  notion,  and  yet  it  would  have  been  better 
than  anything  he  printed  that  day  in  his  huge  and  dismal 
pages. 

Of  a  Saturday  we  were  wont  to  inflict  upon  the  public 
six  pages  instead  of  four,  the  two  additions  consisting  of 
scissored  miscellany  of  a  dignified  but  indigestible  kind, 
a  few  trifles  of  local  interest,  and  sketches  that  the  staff 
was  allowed  to  contribute.  By  writing  industriously  for 
these  columns,  I  added  something  to  my  earnings,  which 
occasionally  reached  the  dazzling  figures  of  twelve  dollars  a 
week.  At  that,  I  fared  better  than  some  others.  I  remem- 
ber a  man  of  really  excellent  ability  and  character,  a  uni- 
versity graduate  and  afterwards  famous  as  an  art  critic, 
who   did   Yorkville   police   court    for   an   average   weekly 

58 


The  Streets  and  the  Island 

compensation  of  six  dollars.  I  wonder  now  that  we  had  any- 
staff.  Most  of  us  went  without  luncheons  because  we 
had  no  money  to  buy  them  with.  Some  dietists  advise  no 
more  than  two  meals  a  day.  I  can  conscientiously  testify 
that  working  without  food  from  eight  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing until  five  o'clock  at  night  is  inadvisable  if  one  is  a 
reporter  and  gets  one's  two  meals  at  a  boarding  house. 


59 


LESSONS  IN  GEOGRAPHY  AND  IN  OTHER  USEFUL  STUDIES 

The  winter  came  on  and  was  as  unusually  cold  as  the 
summer  had  been  excessively  hot.  From  the  nature  of 
my  work  I  was  often  obliged  to  see  the  picture  reversed 
and  the  same  tenement  house  dwellers  that  had  slept  upon 
the  roofs  for  fresh  air,  now  stuffing  rags  into  window 
cracks  to  keep  out  the  knife-edge  of  the  wind.  And  I 
came  thus  to  a  clear  perception  of  the  true  and  grim  pro- 
portions of  the  effrontery  that  called  this  a  prosperous 
nation,  since  at  all  times,  whether  they  be  called  good  or 
bad,  the  vast  majority  of  the  population  is  always  poor 
and  the  prosperity  we  seek  must  be  the  prosperity  of  only 
a  comparatively  small  number.  And  it  recurs  to  me  now 
as  a  fact  of  some  interest  that  a  reporter  using  his  eyes 
should  come  roughly  and  unscientifically  to  the  same  con- 
clusions about  poverty  and  wealth  that  were  afterwards 
scientifically  established  by  the  investigations  of  sociologists 
like  Charles  B.  Spahr,  Robert  Hunter,  and  John  Graham 
Brooks. 

We  were  greatly  interested  that  winter  in  trying  to  send 
persons  to  prison.  Most  of  them  were  former  city  alder- 
men accused  of  the  novel  offense  of  taking  bribes,  but  there 
were  also  others  that  were  worth  writing  about.  Of  twenty- 
six  aldermen  that  in  a  spasm  of  virtue  we  attempted  to 
land  in  Sing  Sing,  only  two  ever  reached  the  portals  of 
that  gloomy  place,  and  one  of  these  was  soon  released  by 

60 


Lessons  in  Geography  and  Other  Studies 

the  Court  of  Appeals.  But  to  another  group,  being  bur- 
glars, thieves,  and  the  like,  conviction  seemed  moderately 
easy  and  among  these  were  some  of  unusual  interest.  I  had 
journeyed  to  Sing  Sing  with  the  two  convicted  aldermen 
and  had  written  stories  of  them  and  their  trips.  On  one 
such  occasion  I  saw  and  had  a  conversation  with  Ferdinand 
Ward,  the  fallen  Napoleon  of  Wall  Street,  convicted  of 
financial  irregularities  after  the  historic  failure  of  Grant 
&  Ward.  Our  city  editor  was  one  to  whom  ideas  came 
not  readily,  but  he  perceived  at  last  that  Sing  Sing  con- 
tained an  unusual  number  of  distinguished  guests,  was  a 
center  of  interest,  and  might  be  made  the  occasion  of  a 
moral  tale  as  to  how  all  these  wrongdoers  fared  under  the 
vengeance  of  offended  society.  And  I  was  selected  to 
furnish  such  a  narrative. 

A  bitter  place  of  instruction  is  a  great  prison,  but  whole- 
some to  those  willing  to  learn.  Not  wholesome  to  those 
condemned  to  be  crushed  in  its  awful  mill;  wholesome  to 
souls  still  at  liberty  and  disposed  to  see  what  society  does 
with  its  victims  in  their  last  stages  and  how  it  teaches 
and  trains  them  to  prey  upon  itself.  I  was  all  day  in  the 
prison.  I  remember  yet  and  always  shall  the  impression 
made  upon  me  when  the  long  lines  of  men  in  the  hideous 
striped  uniforms  came  marching  with  the  lock  step  up  to 
the  dining  hall  for  dinner.  So  many  young  men  with 
lives  hopelessly  wrecked  at  the  outset;  so  many  black 
indictments  scored  against  our  system  of  civilization. 

I  found  the  prisoners  about  whom  I  desired  to  write. 
Ferdinand  Ward  was  setting  type.  Sergeant  Crowley  was 
in  the  shoe  shop.  Aldermen  Jaehne  and  O'Neill  were  in 
the  clothing  shop,  and  so  on.  As  I  was  crossing  the  yard 
under  the  escort  of  the  guide  that  had  been  assigned  to 
me,  PriiJcipal  Keeper  Connaughton  came  up  and  said: 

61 


/^ 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

"  There's  a  friend  of  yours  that  would  like  to  see  you." 

"  Where,"  said  I,  **  in  the  name  of  wonder  ?  " 

"  In  the  library/*   said  he,   and  led  the  way  into   the 

building,  where,  in  the  convict's  garb,  and  duly  installed 

as  the  prison's   librarian,   sat  the  man   I   had  known  in 

Detroit  as  Frank  H.  Powers. 

One  day  when  I  was  managing  editor  of  the  Detroit 
Tribune  I  looked  up  from  my  desk  to  find  standing  before 
me  a  rather  heavy-set  man  about  thirty-eight  years  old,  sal- 
low and  pale,  well  dressed  in  a  bygone  fashion,  who  intro- 
duced himself  as  an  English  journalist  in  distress.  He  said 
he  had  been  attracted  from  a  good  place  on  the  staff  of  the 
London  Advertiser  by  the  published  reports  of  prosperity 
and  opportunity  at  Winnipeg  and  had  gone  thither.  The 
Winnipeg  boom,  as  I  knew  very  well,  had  now  come  to  an 
end:  he  found  himself  out  of  work  and  out  of  funds,  and 
was  trying  to  make  his  way  home.  Could  I  give  him  any- 
thing to  do  on  the  Tribune? 

The  man  spoke  in  the  manner  of  the  highly  educated; 
his  face  and  expression  clearly  indicated  an  unusual  order 
of  intelligence;  he  had  an  agreeable,  low-pitched  voice; 
and  his  conversation  quickly  showed  that  he  was  a  trained 
newspaper  man:  but  there  was  something  about  him,  I 
could  not  tell  what,  that  seemed  elusive,  disconcerting,  and 
strange.  I  made  a  mental  comment  on  his  attire,  which, 
as  I  have  said,  was  of  excellent  quality,  too  good  for  a 
man  out  of  work  and  in  distress,  but  after  a  style  long 
out  of  date.  In  the  end,  I  concluded  that  men  in  London 
or  Winnipeg  might  still  be  wearing  clothes  of  the  fashion 
and  the  point  was  immaterial. 

I  was  interested  in  his  story  of  misfortune  and  inclined 
to  help  him  in  any  way  in  my  power,  but  as  I  explained 
to  him  fully,  we  were  poor,  we  had  a  small  staff,  we  were 

62 


Lessons  in  Geography  and  Other  Studies 

attempting  the  experiment  then  new  to  Detroit  of  a  two 
cent  morning  newspaper^  and  I  had  no  place  in  which 
I  could  put  him.  We  had  on  at  the  time  a  very  sensational 
murder  trial  that  was  to  begin  the  next  day.  My  visitor 
proposed  that  he  should,  on  his  own  venture,  attend  the 
opening  of  the  trial  and  bring  me  a  story  about  it.  **  If 
on  comparing  it  with  the  story  written  by  your  own  re- 
porter," said  he,  "  you  do  not  deem  mine  to  be  so  much 
the  better  that  you  feel  obliged  to  use  mine,  I  will  ask 
for  no  compensation  and  will  not  bother  you  again.'* 

I  acceded  to  this  proposal  because  I  did  not  believe  I 
should  ever  see  the  man  again,  and  he  went  quietly  away. 
The  next  night  he  came  in  with  his  written  story  of  the 
trial,  laid  it  upon  my  desk,  and  departed  without  a  word. 
I  picked  it  up  and  with  the  first  sentence  perceived  that 
we  had  found  a  jewel  of  great  price.  It  was  a  marvelous 
story  he  had  written,  of  a  kind  I  had  longed  for  but  de- 
spaired of  ever  getting,  and  left  me  nothing  to  do  but  to 
print  it.  When  Frank  H.  Powers,  late  of  London  and 
Manitoba,  came  to  the  office  the  next  day  he  found  himself 
regularly  on  the  Tribune  staff  and  assigned  to  do  the 
trial. 

He  stayed  with  us  four  months  and  in  that  time  per- 
formed every  variety  of  work  to  be  done  in  the  editorial 
department  and  performed  it  with  skill  and  dispatch.  He 
wrote  brilliant  editorials,  he  produced  local  stories  that 
were  the  talk  of  the  town,  he  could  edit  copy,  he  could 
write  good  heads,  he  could  make  up  the  paper,  and  daily 
he  gave  me,  in  the  quietest  way,  hints  and  suggestions 
about  news  stories  that  showed  he  knew  my  job  better 
than  I  knew  it  myself. 

At  the  same  time,  he  could  talk  most  entertainingly  and 
in  the  manner  of  a  polished  gentleman,  upon  almost  any 

63 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

topic.  He  had  traveled  widely  and  knew  Constantinople 
and  Melbourne  as  well  as  London.  I  have  never  known  a 
man  with  so  many  and  diverse  accomplishments;  and  par- 
ticularly I  have  never  met  one  of  equal  acquaintance  with 
English  literature.  He  knew  the  whole  range  of  it  from 
the  Venerable  Bede  to  William  Dean  Howells_,  knew  it  not 
merely  in  a  dilletante  way,  but  profoundly  like  a  good 
student.  He  had  a  fund  of  ready  quotations  from  the 
English  poets  that  surpassed  even  that  of  Ernest  McGaffy. 
With  the  comfortable  egotism  of  youth,  I  had  plumed  and 
prided  myself  on  the  thought  that  I  knew  something  about 
lyrical  poetry  but  he  showed  me  that  this  was  only  another 
of  my  errors.  Compared  with  his  knowledge  mine  was 
literally  ignorance.  He  had  a  smattering  of  music,  and 
sometimes  after  reciting  a  delicious  old  lyric  like  "  Go, 
Lovely  Rose!*'  he  would  say: 

"  I  once  tried  to  get  up  an  air  for  that.  It  went  like 
this." 

And  then  he  would  sing  a  stanza  to  a  tune  that  he  either 
invented  or  stole,  I  do  not  know  which. 

All  this,  but  particularly  the  newspaper  facility,  I  ad- 
mit should  have  put  me  upon  my  guard,  but  I  was  so  dull 
that  I  never  closely  regarded  anything  beyond  the  quality 
of  the  man*s  work  and  his  amazing  versatility.  An  English 
newspaper  man  could  not  sit  down  at  our  telegraph  editor's 
desk  and  offhand  do  the  telegraph  editor's  work  in  our 
style:  an  English  newspaper  man  could  not  know  infallibly 
the  taste  and  temper  of  an  American  constituency.  Other 
things  passed  before  me  equally  unnoted.  Mr.  Powers 
used  for  copy  paper  the  letter  heads  of  a  contracting  firm 
at  Waupun,  Wisconsin;  of  which  he  seemed  to  have  great 
store.  If  he  could  talk  like  a  university  post-graduate, 
he  could  also  on  occasion  descend  to  an  abominable  vul- 

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Lessons  in  Geography  and  Other  Studies 

garity  of  speech.  He  developed  a  fondness  for  strong 
drink  and  for  low  company  that  was  irreconcilable  with 
his  learned  comments  on  literary  art.  But  he  could  write 
dramatic  criticisms  that  sparkled  with  brilliance  and  epi- 
grams; and  he  could  take  a  dull  local  story  and  rewrite  it 
into  a  shape  that  fascinated  every  reader. 

Except  for  his  habit  of  drinking  occasionally  to  excess, 
I  had  no  fault  to  find  with  his  service.  One  day  we  were 
talking  about  the  London  of  Charles  Dickens  when  he 
stopped  suddenly,  looked  squarely  at  me,  a  thing  he  did 
seldom,  and  said: 

**  You  know  who  I  am,  don't  you?  " 

"  I  haven't  the  least  idea,"  said  I  blankly. 

**  Why,'*  he  said,  **  I  am  Ross  Raymond." 

The  statement  should  have  been  potent  information  to 
me,  but  it  was  not.  Strangely  enough,  I  had  never  heard 
of  Ross  Raymond.     I  said  flippantly  and  foolishly: 

**  You  may  be  Charley  Ross,  the  kidnapped  child,  for  all 
I  know.  You  are  a  good  newspaper  man,  and  that  is  what 
is  needed  here." 

He  seemed  chagrined  and  vexed  at  my  response  and 
went  away  in  dudgeon.  That,  I  believe,  was  on  a  Satur- 
day. On  Monday  a  new  comic  opera  company  was  to 
open  an  engagement  in  Detroit  and  one  of  its  members  was 
one  of  this  gentleman's  wives;  which  one  I  do  not  know. 
Possibly  he  did  not  care  to  remain  in  the  same  town  with 
her  and  possibly  he  was  dead  weary  of  the  humdrum 
ways  of  virtue.  The  next  day  I  received  a  letter  from 
him  politely  resigning  from  the  staff.  He  had,  in  fact, 
already  departed,  and  the  next  we  heard  of  him  was  at 
Springfield,  Illinois,  where  he  pretended  to  be  Eugene 
Field,  (whom  he  resembled  as  much  as  he  resembled  George 
Washington,)  persuaded  a  hotel  keeper  to  cash  two  checks 

Q5 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

in  Field's  name,  and  went  his  way,  the  most  famous  swin- 
dler and  jail  bird  of  his  times. 

Such  was  the  fact.  When  he  arrived  at  Detroit  he  had 
come  not  from  Winnipeg  but  from  the  Waupun,  Wisconsin, 
State  Penitentiary,  whence  he  had  just  been  released  after 
a  three  years'  term.  That  was  the  reason  why  he  had 
so  much  copy  paper  with  the  name  of  the  Waupun  con- 
tracting firm  upon  it.  He  had  been  bookkeeper  for  the 
firm,  which  had  prison  contracts.  The  reason  his  clothes 
were  old-fashioned  was  that  they  had  been  kept  for  him 
at  the  prison  and  restored  to  him  upon  his  release.  The 
pallor  upon  his  face  was  the  prison  pallor :  the  thing  elusive 
in  his  manner  was  the  taint  of  the  jail. 

The  life  of  this  man  was  an  exception  to  all  the 
reasonable  deductions  of  sociology.  He  was  said  to  have 
come  of  a  good  family;  I  do  not  know;  but  he  had  a  good 
education  in  his  native  state  of  Delaware  and  started  upon 
a  promising  career.  While  he  was  still  very  young  he 
wrote  a  novel  that  was  well  received.  In  1876  he  was  a 
star  reporter  on  the  New  York  Herald  and  wrote  brilliant 
articles  for  it  about  the  Centennial  celebration  and  ex- 
position at  Philadelphia.  While  thus  employed  he  got 
into  some  trouble  and  started  upon  his  course  in  crime  by 
incurring  a  jail  sentence.  For  the  greater  part  of  the  next 
forty  years  he  was  an  inmate  of  one  prison  or  another — 
a  commentary  on  the  usefulness  of  our  system  of  punish- 
ment, since  as  soon  as  he  was  released  he  steered  a  de- 
liberate course  for  reincarceration. 

Some  of  his  frauds  have  passed  into  history.  One  day 
he  appeared  in  Paris  wearing  a  red  fez  and  announcing 
himself  to  be  the  avant-courier  of  the  Khedive  of  Egypt, 
who  was  about  to  visit  Paris  incognito.  He  selected  the 
hotel  for  the  august  visitor  and  induced  the  proprietor  to 


Lessons  in  Geography  and  Other  Studies 

tear  down  partitions  and  remake  some  of  his  apartments  to 
accommodate  the  Khedival  entourage.  He  went  out  among 
the  jewelers  and  bought  for  the  Khedive  (without  paying 
for  them)  watches,  jewelry,  and  expensive  trifles  for  pres- 
ents. One  of  the  watches  was  a  magnificent  thing,  crusted 
with  gems.  Then  he  borrowed  20,000  francs  of  the 
hotel  keeper  and  fled.  I  think  this  was  by  far  the  most 
profitable  of  his  operations  and  even  this  was,  after  all, 
nothing  very  great.  Usually  the  amount  he  gained  by  a 
swindle  was  not  more  than  two  or  three  hundred  dollars 
and  seemed  designed  to  be  just  enough  to  insure  a  peniten- 
tiary sentence.  For  it  was  not  the  money  he  won  that 
attracted  him:  the  man  was  consumed  by  an  irrational 
vanity  in  the  fact  that  he  was  called  the  cleverest  swindler 
in  the  world,  and  still  more  than  that  he  was  carried  away 
by  the  idea  of  matching  his  wits  against  other  men  and 
proving  his  superiority. 

At  the  time  I  met  him  in  Sing  Sing  he  was  serving  a 
two  years'  term  for  an  exploit  that  may  still  be  regarded, 
I  believe,  as  unique  for  audacity  and  small  returns.  The 
great  private  yacht  of  some  Wall  Street  broker  was  lying 
at  New  Rochelle.  Raymond,  clad  in  yachting  rig,  ap- 
peared before  her  skipper,  and  presented  a  note  from 
the  owner  directing  that  Captain  Roberts,  of  the  British 
Navy,  should  be  taken  to  cruise  in  the  Sound  for  a  week. 
The  yacht  obediently  put  to  sea  and  for  the  next  few  days 
kept  the  coast  in  a  state  of  wild  excitement.  The  same 
night  the  owner  arrived  at  New  Rochelle,  purposing  a 
cruise  on  his  own  account,  and  was  amazed  to  find  his 
yacht  gone.  He  kept  the  telegraph  wires  hot  that  night 
and  the  next  day  the  yacht  was  reported  off  New  London. 
He  started  for  New  London,  expecting  to  join  it,  and 
when  he  arrived  found  that  the  vessel  was  then  off  Bridge- 

67 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

port.  The  Bridgeport  police  in  response  to  a  telegram 
put  out  in  a  tug,  but  the  yacht  had  disappeared  and  the 
next  word  of  her  was  from  Sag  Harbor  at  the  eastern  end 
of  Long  Island.  Meantime  Captain  Roberts  of  the  British 
Navy,  cruising  up  and  down  the  Sound,  sat  at  ease  on 
the  owner's  quarter  deck,  smoking  the  owner's  prime  cigars 
and  drinking  the  owner's  best  liquors.  At  one  of  his  land- 
ings he  slipped  in  a  worthless  check  to  be  cashed — ^by  way 
of  practice,  I  suppose. 

Of  course  such  an  expedition  could  not  last  long;  with 
the  police  watching  for  the  yacht  in  every  port  and  tugs 
cruising  in  the  Sound,  capture  was  only  a  question  of  hours. 
Captain  Roberts  of  the  British  Navy  prolonged  his  holiday 
as  much  as  he  could  and  was  brought  into  the  port  of 
New  York,  where  he  pleaded  guilty  and  a  few  days  later 
was  in  Sing  Sing.  We  sat  there  and  chatted  without  the 
least  embarrassment  on  his  part.  He  received  me  with  the 
air  of  a  gentleman  entertaining  in  his  parlor  a  visitor  to 
whom  he  desired  to  be  polite.  We  talked  of  newspaper 
work  in  New  York  and  he  gave  me  suggestion  after  sug- 
gestion, all  of  practical  value.  When  I  left  he  arose  and 
walked  with  me  to  the  door,  bidding  me  farewell  with  a 
stately  and  polished  courtesy  that  under  the  circumstances 
made  me  gasp. 

After  his  release  from  Sing  Sing  he  disappeared  for  a 
time  and  the  next  we  heard  of  him  was  in  England.  The 
great  fad,  diversion,  almost  passion  of  Joseph  Chamberlain, 
the  English  statesman,  was  orchids,  of  which  he  had  one 
of  the  largest  collections  in  the  world.  Raymond  studied 
orchids,  mastered  the  whole  subject,  won  the  attention  and 
regard  of  Mr.  Chamberlain  (a  very  difficult  feat)  by  talk- 
ing orchids  to  him,  became  an  honored  guest  at  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain's house,  and  then  swindled  him  by  inducing  him 

OS 


Lessons  in  Geography  and  Other  Studies 

to  buy  a  kind  of  orchid  that  did  not  exist.  The  English 
courts  take  a  more  serious  view  than  ours  of  such  crimes 
and  Raymond  found  himself  sentenced  to  ten  years  in 
Birmingham  jail.  On  his  release  he  went  to  Philadelphia, 
professed  reformation  and  became  city  editor  of  a  Phila- 
delphia paper,  a  post  he  filled  with  ability  for  more  than 
a  year,  if  I  remember  correctly.  Then  he  once  more 
wearied  of  the  ways  of  honesty  and  retired  (on  some  charge 
of  ingenious  fraud)  to  a  Western  penitentiary.  His  last 
exploit  of  which  I  have  record  was  to  pass  himself  off  as 
an  eminent  Egyptologist,  in  the  which  capacity  he  dazzled 
Mr.  Seth  Low  and  the  learned  authorities  of  Columbia 
University  and  ended  by  swindling  them  of  a  few  hundred 
dollars.     He  died  in  prison. 

Few  men  have  had  smaller  reason  to  commit  crimes,  for, 
as  you  can  readily  see,  he  could  have  made  by  honesty  far 
more  than  he  ever  made  by  all  his  frauds.  He  was  the 
author  of  at  least  one  successful  novel  and  a  fairly  success- 
ful play,  and  he  wrote,  without  apparent  effort,  some  of 
the  most  fluent,  forceful,  and  picturesque  English  I  have 
ever  read.  His  rapidity  was  a  ceaseless  amazement  to  us. 
We  used  to  think  1,000  words  an  hour  was  good  speed 
with  the  pen.  When  he  was  enacting  the  part  of  Frank 
H.  Powers  in  the  Tribune  office  he  would  do  1,500  words 
an  hour  and  seem  to  regard  it  as  no  task.  In  the  prisons 
he  always  succeeded  in  obtaining  light  clerical  employment 
and  was  able  to  utilize  much  of  his  time  in  reading,  which 
accounted  for  his  wide  erudition.  But  why  he  was  spurred 
to  accumulate  such  stores  of  learning  is  as  much  a  mystery 
as  his  unconquerable  addiction  to  fraud. 

But  motive !  Who  can  fathom  motive  }  And  how  foolish 
in  seeking  to  unravel  a  human  mystery  to  be  bogged  much 
about  that  matter!     In  my  professional  career  I  have  been 

Q9 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

employed  on,  I  suppose,  fourscore  murder  mysteries  and 
in  a  majority  of  these  was  either  no  discernible  motive  or 
none  that  a  rational  mind  could  deem  in  any  way  ex- 
planatory. Why,  even  the  man  of  peace  and  quiet  walk 
in  one  steadfast  round  of  worthy  endeavor  does  things  and 
says  things  every  day  of  his  life  at  which,  in  a  moment 
of  introspection,  he  will  be  amazed.  What  motive  had 
Scotty  and  his  tribe  for  wandering  ceaselessly  in  the  midst 
of  hardships?  At  the  time  Raymond  was  experimenting 
with  honesty  in  Detroit  we  were  plagued  with  a  murder 
mystery  of  a  peculiarly  baffling  kind.  After  some  investi- 
gation I  was  morally  certain  I  could  go  straight  from  my 
office  and  in  thirty  minutes  put  my  hand  on  the  murderer. 
And  if  I  was  right,  for  a  cruel  and  terrible  deed,  involv- 
ing the  deaths  of  four  persons,  there  was  no  motive  more 
compelling  than  a  disagreement  about  the  salt-cellar  at  a 
family  dinner.  And  on  grounds  of  reason  no  more  sub- 
stantial than  these  stand  countless  other  dark  deeds  in  the 
records.  The  truth  is  no  one  has  yet  auscultated  human 
life  and  the  human  heart,  nor  any  considerable  part  thereof. 
We  all  try  it  and  we  all  bungle  at  it,  and  the  more  ex- 
perienced we  become  at  the  task  the  more  hopeless  it  seems. 
I  should  say,  for  example,  that  if  a  man  should  arise  capa- 
ble of  explaining  why  a  delicately  nurtured  young  woman 
can  at  one  hour  tenderly  nurse,  as  an  angel  of  mercy  might, 
a  poor  devil  with  a  headache,  and  the  next  hour  go  to  a 
football  game,  soothed  and  sustained  by  the  precious  hope 
that  she  is  about  to  see  someone  killed,  such  a  man  would 
be  a  greater  philosopher  than  has  thus  far  illuminated 
this  darkling  world. 

But  to  this  rascal,  as  to  that  other  and  far  more  innocent 
vagabond  of  my  earlier  days,  I  was  indebted  for  instruc- 
tion.    Indeed,  we  learn  from  all  we  meet:  for  all  experi- 

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Lessons  in  Geography  and  Other  Studies 

ence  is  far  more  than  the  arch  that  Tennyson  visioned. 
If  one  taught  me  the  rudiments  of  the  reporter's  art,  the 
other  caused  me  to  take  a  tolerant  view  of  the  matter  of 
motive  and  to  look  straight  to  the  deed,  whatever  may  have 
caused  it. 

Something,  too,  was  afforded  by  the  force  of  contrast, 
for  this  swindler  was  about  the  only  criminal  I  have  known 
whose  path  was  not  made  for  him  by  his  environment. 
But  he  was  plainly  abnormal  and  very  likely  in  him, 
too,  the  causative  environment  that  seemed  to  be  lack- 
ing might  have  been  found  in  his  inheritance. 

The  winter,  as  I  have  said,  was  severe  and  edged  with 
heavy  storms.  On  New  Year's  Day  a  small  party  of 
Brooklyn  men  went  down  to  Jamaica  Bay  to  shoot  ducks. 
The  weather  changed  suddenly,  a  blizzard  came  on,  and 
the  men  did  not  return.  On  the  morning  of  January  3 
they  were  still  reported  to  be  missing  and  the  city  editor 
handed  me  the  clipping  about  them  from  a  morning  paper 
and  bade  me  forth.     He  said: 

*'  You  go  down  to  Jamaica  on  the  Long  Island  Railroad 
and  see  if  you  can  find  those  men.  Go  by  the  way  of  Long 
Island  City  and  call  up  the  office  by  telephone  to  see  if 
anything  has  been  reported  here  of  them.  If  not,  go 
ahead  and  buy  your  ticket."  Careful  man,  he  had  ever 
an  eye  upon  the  weekly  expense  account. 

In  spite  of  many  experiences  that  should  have  enlight- 
ened me  I  thought  the  city  editor  knew  something  of  local 
geography  and  followed  his  instructions.  I  went  over  to 
Long  Island  City,  called  up  the  office,  and  then  bought  a 
round  trip  ticket  to  Jamaica.  When  I  alighted  at  this 
classic  spot  I  found  I  was  three  miles  from  Jamaica  Bay 
and  the  only  way  to  win  thither  was  to  hire  a  carriage  or 
walk.    I  knew  if  I  tried  to  walk  it  I  should  never  get  back 

71 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

in  time  to  get  news  into  the  paper  that  day.  I  had  in  my 
pocket  one  dollar  and  three  cents.  A  hackman  wanted  three 
dollars  to  take  me  to  the  Bay  and  back.  By  virtue  of  much 
pleading  and  working  upon  his  sympathies  I  induced  liim  to 
do  the  job  for  my  dollar.  The  day  was  very  cold  with  a 
bitter  northeast  wind^  the  vehicle  was  an  open  rockaway, 
and  I  was  but  thinly  clad.    I  frosted  an  ear  on  the  way. 

When  we  reached  Jamaica  Bay  I  found  I  was  on  the 
edge  of  a  great  level  stretch  of  sand  and  ice  without  habi- 
tation except  for  one  fisherman's  hut.  I  explained  my 
errand  to  the  fisherman.  He  told  me  that  nobody  ever 
came  to  that  part  of  the  Bay  to  shoot  ducks — nor  for  any 
other  purpose,,  I  judge.  The  shooting  region  was  on  the 
other  side  and  about  eight  miles  off.  How  could  I  get  there  ? 
Why,  the  only  way  was  to  go  to  Long  Island  City  and  take 
the  train  for  Far  Rockaway — to-morrow.  I  could  not  get  to 
Long  Island  City  in  time  to  get  the  train  to-day.  He  had 
heard  nothing  about  the  men  for  whom  I  was  searching. 

I  went  back  to  the  town  of  Jamaica,  frosting  the  other 
ear  on  the  way,  and  caught  a  train  for  Long  Island  City, 
which  I  reached  about  four  o'clock.  I  had  three  cents  in 
my  pockets  and  was  ready  to  faint  with  hunger.  I  knew 
there  was  a  ferry  from  Long  Island  City  to  James  Slip, 
New  York,  and  my  idea  was  to  take  it,  go  up  to  the  office, 
and  borrow  enough  money  to  pay  my  way  home.  On  all  the 
ferries  of  my  acquaintance  the  fare  was  either  two  cents  or 
three  cents.  I  marched  down  to  the  ferry  slip  and  was  con- 
fronted with  a  sign  that  read: 

FARE  SIX  CENTS 

I  do  not  know  that  I  was  ever  more  disgusted.  The 
money  I  had  in  my  hand,  three  copper  cents,  was  not 

72 


Lessons  in  Geography  and  Other  Studies 

enough  to  take  me  anywhere^  I  was  eight  miles  from 
home^  half -frozen  and  half-starved,  and  unless  I  should 
turn  beggar  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  walk.  I  stood 
for  some  time  trying  to  coach  myself  in  some  phrase  of 
explanation  that  might  seem  plausible  to  an  utter  stranger, 
and  appalled  at  the  attempt  gave  it  up.  I  knew  my  New 
York  too  well,  I  said,  and  started  to  walk.  I  covered  the 
eight  miles  in  two  hours  and  a  half  and  arrived  home  in 
time  for  the  scrap  end  of  a  boarding  house  dinner. 

The  next  morning  when  I  reached  the  office,  having 
borrowed  ten  cents  from  a  fellow-boarder,  I  learned  that  the 
duck  hunters  had  been  found.  The  net  proceeds  of  my 
day's  work  therefore  were  two  frosted  ears,  some  hours 
on  the  sand  barrens,  and  a  day  of  needless  hunger  and 
fatigue.  Having  no  story  I  received  no  compensation. 
The  climax  was  when  I  presented  a  claim  for  the  dollar 
I  had  paid  to  the  hackman  and  the  lynx-eyed  auditor  re- 
j  ected  the  charge.  **  We  don't  hire  any  carriages  for  youse 
guys,"  he  said  acidly.  I  was  therefore  the  loser  of  the 
dollar  as  well  as  of  the  day.  The  owner  of  the  paper  was 
Mr.  Parke  Godwin,  son-in-law  of  William  CuUen  Bryant, 
who  had  a  reputation  as  a  philanthropist  and  in  appearance 
was  a  grand  and  kindly  patriarch.  I  never  had  a  chance 
to  tell  him  what  I  thought  of  his  newspaper,  but  if  I  could 
have  done  so  with  safety  immediately  upon  my  return  from 
Jamaica  I  think  it  would  have  been  an  animated  recital 
and  worth  his  hearing.  And  yet  it  would  have  been  an 
irrational  resentment.  The  manner  in  which  we  were 
preyed  upon  happened  to  be  sharply  revealed,  but  it 
was  in  no  degree  worse  than  the  rest  of  the  system  of 
wages  everywhere.  Like  other  working  persons  we  were 
engaged  in  giving  our  toil  for  the  profit  of  others  that  did 
nothing  for  the  enterprise.     They  took  from  it  much  and 

73 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

gave  nothing;  we  gave  much  and  took  barely  enough  to 
sustain  life;  which  is  a  perfectly  typical  condition  and 
ought  to  have  filled  us  with  satisfaction  instead  of 
anger. 

In  any  event  the  experience  had  its  good  side,  little  as 
it  seemed  to  promise  blessing.  It  compelled  me  to  collect 
and  reinforce  my  waning  courage,  for  I  saw  that  the  situa- 
tion was  becoming  intolerable  and  I  must  seek  employment 
elsewhere. 

I  was  the  more  moved  to  action  by  an  incident  that  about 
this  time  gave  me  an  unwelcome  glimpse  into  the  real 
machinery  of  the  oflfice. 

A  strike  of  longshoremen  was  in  progress,  and  by  mere 
accident  I  had  attained  from  it  some  prominence  in  the 
editorial  eye.  It  was  the  most  trifling  thing  in  the  world 
and  not  worth  recording  except  for  its  consequences.  I 
was  riding  one  day  on  the  rear  platform  of  an  old  Belt 
Line  car  in  West  Street,  and  heard  two  men  on  the  car 
speak  of  an  impending  strike  on  the  Providence  Line  pier 
which  we  were  then  passing.  I  hopped  off  the  car,  went 
to  the  pier,  picked  up  the  fact  of  the  strike,  and  thus  the 
staid  old  Commercial  Advertiser  was  made  to  look  young 
and  spritely  with  a  beat.  To  judge  from  the  excitement 
it  caused  in  the  office  it  must  have  been  the  first  in  her 
dignified  history,  and  thereafter  the  strike  story  from  day 
to  day  was  my  own. 

It  had  lasted  four  days  and  become  serious,  tying  up 
every  steamship  line,  when  there  came  into  the  office  three 
portly,  well-fed  gentlemen,  one  of  whom  I  recognized  a^ 
the  active  manager  of  a  great  coast-wise  steamship  com- 
pany. I  had  reason  to  know  him,  for  at  the  beginning 
of  the  strike  he  had  met  me  with  a  volley  of  curses  and 
foul  abuse  when  in  his  office   I  had  asked  him   for  in- 

74, 


Lessons  in  Geography  and  Other  Studies 

formation.  The  three  went  into  the  den  of  the  editor, 
with  whom  they  were  closeted  a  long  time.  When  they 
went  away  the  editor  came  out  and  gave  me  an  assignment. 
It  was  to  discover  the  exact  full  names  and  actual  addresses 
of  seven  leaders  of  the  'longshoremen  in  the  strike.  Noth- 
ing was  said  as  to  why  these  names  were  wanted;  I  was 
merely  told  to  get  them  and  be  sure  that  I  had  every  name 
and  with  accuracy. 

I  went  out  of  the  office  in  no  very  good  humor.  Without 
knowledge  in  the  matter  I  suspected  a  sinister  purpose 
back  of  my  errand.  I  knew  most  of  the  seven  and  liked 
them  and  was  by  no  means  eager  to  be  the  means  of  in- 
juring them.  Nevertheless,  the  sense  of  duty  being  strong 
upon  me,  I  sourly  took  my  way  to  the  home  of  the  first 
man  on  my  list.  It  was  in  Barrow  Street,  far  over  on  the 
west  side,  near  the  piers,  the  top  flat  in  a  front  tenement. 
The  man  was  from  home,  and  I  knew  well  enough  why: 
he  was  at  the  longshoremen's  headquarters,  where  he  was 
helping  to  direct  the  strike.  His  wife  met  me  at  the  door, 
a  decent,  kindly,  intelligent  woman,  whose  very  attitude 
struck  a  chill  into  me ;  for  dire  fear  sat  palpably  upon  her. 
She  was  worried  about  her  husband  and  the  strike;  she 
regarded  me  with  additional  terror  as  one  in  some  way 
capable  of  adding  to  her  misfortunes;  and  the  efforts  she 
made  to  propitiate  me  filled  me  with  an  indescribable  dis- 
taste of  my  errand. 

The  three  rooms  were  bare  but  wonderfully  clean;  she 
was  manifestly  a  good  housewife.  She  began  to  tell  me 
about  the  strike  and  the  reasons  for  it.  There  were  two 
children  in  the  household,  boys,  one  about  eight  years  old 
and  the  other  about  five.  They  were  singularly  attractive 
youngsters.  The  woman  said  that  it  was  for  them  that  her 
husband  had  joined  the  strike.    Ten  years  the  couple  had 

75 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

been  married  and  had  laid  by  nothing,  because  to  live  took 
all  the  husband's  wages,  and  he  thought  if  he  could  get 
more  money  he  could  put  by  something  to  educate  the 
boys.  If  he  did  not  they  must  go  to  work  without  any 
more  education  than  their  father  had. 

I  did  not  report  the  names  and  addresses  that  were 
wanted  by  the  editor.  I  said  that  developments  and  ex- 
igencies of  the  strike  had  prevented  me  from  getting  them, 
a  statement  that  was  truer  than  the  city  editor  suspected. 
I  did  not  know  what  the  names  were  wanted  for,  but  I 
found  out  a  few  days  later  when  the  seven  longshoremen 
leaders  were  indicted  on  some  charge  of  conspiracy  because 
they  had  led  and  fomented  the  strike.  I  could  not  discover 
that  anybody  had  ever  been  indicted  for  conspiring  to 
condemn  people  to  live  in  the  conditions  I  had  witnessed 
in  Barrow  Street  and  elsewhere,  but  those  conditions  seemed 
to  me  far  more  important  and  far  worse  than  any  strike. 
I  was  glad  I  had  not  reported  the  names,  but  the  idea  of 
making  of  the  noble  art  of  reporting  a  tool  to  serve  the 
purposes  of  cold-hearted  and  greedy  fortune-hunters  like 
the  three  well-fed  gentlemen  that  called  that  day  upon 
the  editor  filled  the  measure  of  my  disgust.  I  was  con- 
vinced then  that  only  the  Commercial  Advertiser  would 
tolerate  a  thing  so  greasy.  In  after  years  I  was  to  be 
dispossessed  effectively  of  this  notion,  but  at  the  time  it 
was  so  strong  upon  me  that  at  all  hazards  I  determined 
to  depart  from  a  place  so  beset. 

I  had  all  this  time,  if  you  will  believe  me,  a  letter  of 
introduction  from  Dr.  Miller  of  the  Omaha  Herald  to 
Joseph  Pulitzer,  proprietor  of  the  New  York  World,  but 
the  last  drop  of  faith  in  such  documents  had  long  been 
wrung  from  me.  Of  all  that  I  had  presented  in  New 
York  the  only  result  had  seemed  to  be  a  colder  reception, 

76 


Lessons  in  Geography  and  Other  Studies 

a  curter  refusal^,  and  my  own  more  hurried  exit.  But  the 
case  was  now  desperate.  There  was  but  one  chance  in  a 
thousand  that  Mr.  Pulitzer  would  see  me,  but  I  must  take 
even  that  chance;  and  one  afternoon  found  me,  I  scarcely 
knew  how,  waiting  at  the  foot  of  the  elevator  in  the  old 
World  building  opposite  the  Post  Office. 

Five  minutes  later  I  stood,  rather  frightened,  beside  an 
old-fashioned,  high-topped  desk  at  which  a  long,  blonde 
man  was  writing,  his  legs  and  arms  curled  under  and  about 
him.  He  looked  up  after  a  time,  regarded  me  sharply 
through  eye-glasses,  touched  Dr.  Miller's  letter  with  his 
pen,  and  said: 

**  Did  you  send  this  in }  *' 

I  said  I  did.  I  had  expected  from  all  I  had  heard  and 
read  to  hear  from  him  a  marked  foreign  accent,  but  he 
spoke  like  an  American. 

"  Are  you  suggestive  ?  *'  he  said  swiftly. 

I  said  I  did  not  know  but  I  was  a  good  reporter. 

**  Hum,"  he  said,  as  if  the  woods  were  full  of  good 
reporters.  **  I  am  looking  for  suggestive  men.  What  ex- 
perience have  you  had.''  " 

I  ran  over  briefly  where  I  had  worked.  I  think  he 
hardly  listened,  but  regarded  me  furtively  out  of  a  corner 
of  his  eye. 

"Go  and  see  Colonel  Cockerill  about  four  o'clock  to- 
morrow afternoon,"  he  said,  and  dived  into  his  writing. 
The  next  afternoon  at  four  o'clock  I  was  at  Colonel  Cock- 
erill's  door,  whence  I  departed  a  member  of  the  World 
staff. 

It  was  a  big  staff  and  a  very  busy;  I  was  not  long  in 
discovering  that  I  was  the  least  considerable  part  of  the 
machinery  and  absolutely  obscured.  But  for  a  bit  of  good 
fortune  I  know  not  how  long  I  might  have  toiled  in  the 

77 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

ruck:  possibly  for  years  and  possibly  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter.  There  happened  to  be  in  the  World  office  at  that 
time  a  condition  so  typical  of  metropolitan  journalism  that 
it  is  worth  relating  on  its  own  account.  What  are  called 
**  office  politics  **  were  in  a  state  of  highly  irrational  fer- 
ment. The  news  editor  and  the  city  editor  were  deadly 
enemies  and  engaged  in  a  savage  attempt  to  ruin  each 
other,  and  while  I  knew  not  one  from  the  other  or  what 
the  feud  was  about  it  was  the  means  of  bringing  me  a 
singular  windfall. 

Just  at  the  moment  the  New  York  press  was  struggling 
with  a  very  tangled  news  puzzle  familiar  in  journalistic 
records  as  "  the  Rahway  mystery."  A  woman  had  been 
found  murdered  by  the  roadside  near  Rahway,  New  Jersey, 
and  the  discovery  of  the  murderer  was  hopelessly  blocked 
by  the  fact  that  no  one  knew  who  the  woman  was,  although 
she  was  but  slightly  disfigured.  For  the  World,  the  news 
editor  took  charge  of  the  story  and  worked  out  an  almost 
complete  identification  which  he  published  as  a  practical 
"  exclusive "  or  beat.  On  close  examination  a  hole  ap- 
peared in  this  story  and  the  city  editor's  eagle  eye  did 
not  fail  to  discover  it.  He  thought  he  could  smash  that 
identification  and  discredit  his  enemy,  the  news  editor,  if 
he  could  but  get  a  man  on  a  certain  trail.  He  chose  me 
for  the  work  because  being  new  to  the  office  I  was  not 
allied  with  either  faction  and  would  probably  do  impartial 
and  therefore  not  questionable  work. 

The  identification  story  was  founded  on  the  fact  that  a 
certain  woman  arrived  in  Hoboken  on  a  certain  day  by 
the  German  steamer  Saale.  From  interior  indications  in 
the  story  the  city  editor  made  up  his  mind  that  this  woman 
might  still  be  alive  and  was  not  the  Rahway  victim.  My 
task  was  to  find  her.     I  found  some  of  the  steerage  pas- 

78 


Lessons  in  Geography  and  Other  Studies 

sengers  of  the  Saale  and  got  a  first  hand  description  of 
her  although  they  did  not  know  her  name,  and  then  went 
to  the  baggage  agents  and  traced  one  piece  of  third-class 
baggage  after  another  until  I  found  the  woman  in  a  back 
street  of  Jersey  City.  That  spoiled  the  news  editor's  identi- 
fication. 

In  his  joy  over  this  triumph  the  city  editor  focused  his 
eye  upon  me  and  became  aware  of  my  existence.  Thus 
by  purely  fortuitous  circumstance  (which  in  my  experience 
has  been  the  determining  factor  in  all  so-called  success) 
and  without  merit  of  my  own,  I  was  stood  somewhat  apart 
from  the  rest.  Some  months  later  the  World  desired  to 
send  a  staff  man  to  Chicago  as  its  correspondent  there 
and  the  grateful  city  editor  pushed  me  into  the  opening. 


79 


VI 


THE  HAYMARKET  AND  AFTERWARD 

On  the  lake  front  of  Chicago^  where  the  grass  would 
never  grow,  where  the  planted  trees  put  forth  their  sad, 
discouraged  leaves  and  straightway  died,  I  was  wont  to 
see  of  a  Sunday  afternoon  a  small  crowd  listening  to  an 
excited  and  overwrought  orator.  He  was  a  shabby  man 
and  gaunt,  as  if  worn  down  by  his  own  fruitless  emotions; 
but  his  face  was  interesting,  his  energy  prodigious,  and 
his  voice  had  a  mellow  and  peculiar  charm.  His  principal 
business,  as  nearly  as  I  could  gather,  was  to  denounce  the 
rich,  against  whom,  as  placidly  they  rolled  in  their  car- 
riages through  Michigan  Boulevard,  he  would  hurl  anath- 
emas (not  always  intelligible  to  me)  and  shake  a  long, 
imprecatory  finger.  At  which  the  crowd  would  sometimes 
jeer  and  sometimes  faintly  cheer;  but  in  most  instances 
remain  dumb  and  look  bored;  for  the  seed  of  the  ora- 
tor's propaganda  seemed  but  to  fall  upon  soil  as  barren 
as  that  of  the  lake  front,  where  the  grass  would  never 
grow. 

That  was  the  first  time  I  saw  the  man.  The  last  time 
I  saw  him  he  stood  in  the  Cook  County  jail  about  to  die, 
and  with  that  bell-like  and  penetrating  voice  pleaded  to 
be  heard.  Between  these  two  visions  of  him  had  stretched 
the  linked  events  that  had  brought  him  to  his  death  and 
constituted  one  of  the  strangest  and  most  instructive  chap- 
ters in  our  history. 

80 


The  Haymarhet  and  Afterward 

Looking  back  now  I  can  see  that  one  will  not  understand 
Chicago's  part  in  these  things  without  going  much  far- 
ther than  the  Haymarket  and  what  led  directly  thereto. 
For  the  whole  story  we  must  begin  with  the  strikes  that 
at  intervals  for  many  years  had  shaken  the  city;  strikes 
of  seamen^  dock  laborers,  stockyard  workers,  street  railroad 
workers;  we  must  go  back  to  these  and  to  John  Bonfield, 
Captain  first  and  then  Inspector  of  Police. 

A  large,  powerful,  resolute,  ruthless  man,  Bonfield  had 
pressed  his  way  to  the  front  chiefly  by  reason  of  his  physical 
prowess  and  unshakable  courage,  for  of  understanding  he 
had  little.  He  went  to  peace  by  a  way  old  enough  in 
history,  but  rather  new  in  American  communities ;  he  cracked 
all  heads  in  sight  until  no  man  was  left  upright,  and 
then  announced  that  quiet  was  restored  and  the  strike 
broken.  I  remember  well  a  view  I  had  of  him  in  the  great 
street-car  strike  of  1885,  the  clubs  descending  right  and  left 
like  flails,  and  men  falling  before  them,  often  frightfully 
injured.  All  sorts  of  men  they  were,  not  merely  strikers 
nor  strike  sympathizers,  but  innocent  citizens,  caught  in 
the  throng  and  unable  to  escape.  Repeated  and  bloody 
battlings  of  this  kind  firmly  established  in  the  community 
two  conditions  fruitful  of  trouble.  Men  that  worked  with 
their  hands  became  convinced  that  the  police  were  ty- 
rannical, cruel,  arbitrary,  the  professional  and  gratuitous 
enemies  of  the  workers  and  the  devoted  champions  of  the 
employing  class.  On  the  other  hand,  another  part  of  the 
community  got  the  notion  that  in  the  city  was  a  large  ele- 
ment of  desperate  men,  foes  to  society  and  order,  ripe 
for  violence,  and  only  held  in  check  by  the  constant  vigi- 
lance of  the  police. 

To  both  of  these  conditions  such  orators  as  this  of  the 
lake  front  unintentionally  added.    Well-to-do  persons  read 

81 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

of  a  Monday  morning  what  appeared  to  be  the  report  of 
incendiarism  uttered  to  an  assembly  of  the  unruly  elements, 
and  such  things  seemed  a  part  of  the  sowing  of  disorder 
that  had  harvested  so  many  riots.  Workingmen  saw  that  the 
worst  possible  aspect  was  put  upon  their  meetings,  even 
when  their  meetings  were  peaceful  and  innocent,  and  con- 
cluded that  press  and  police  were  leagued  against  them 
and  in  behalf  of  the  employers. 

The  result  was  that  each  Sunday  with  its  meetings  and 
each  Monday  with  its  alarming  reports  increased  the  bitter- 
ness on  one  side  and  the  uneasiness  on  the  other,  and 
might  have  shown  to  any  observer  that  the  city  was  heading 
for  trouble. 

I  have  never  seen  these  things  treated  of  in  any  of  the 
literature  on  this  subject,  and  yet  they  made  the  pivot  on 
which  the  whole  story  turned.  Without  the  long  and  seated 
resentment  of  the  workers  and  the  accumulated  fears  of  the 
rest  of  the  population  any  such  drama  as  followed  would 
have  been  impossible.  In  the  eyes  of  the  world,  Chicago, 
because  of  the  outcome,  bore  many  years  afterward  an 
unjust  measure  of  reproach  as  a  lawless  community;  and 
yet,  in  the  same  peculiar  conditions  and  oppressed  with 
the  same  misconceptions,  I  think  the  world  has  no  great 
city  in  which  there  would  not  have  been  some  outbreak 
as  a  climax  of  the  trouble  making.  And  those  that  think 
that  in  a  republic  we  can  disregard  class  distinctions  re- 
sulting from  industrial  conditions  might  profitably  study 
this  record.  The  letters  are  red  and  smeared,  but  they  are 
still  sufficiently  legible,  and  the  first  thing  they  tell  is  what 
may  come  when  men  will  not  make  the  least  effort  to 
understand  one  another,  while  one  class  accumulates  a  sense 
of  injustice  and  another  of  unlimited  power. 

On  the  top  of  this  smoldering  heap  was  now  laid,  hy 

82 


The  Hay  market  and  Afterward 

the  hands  of  Fate^  the  eight-hour  movement  of  1886.  For 
reasons  hard  to  understand  the  United  States  had  lagged 
far  behind  other  nations  in  this  humane  reform,  and  when 
at  last  it  began  to  be  agitated  many  things  combined  to 
make  it  repugnant  to  a  large  part  of  the  native  citizens. 
It  was  of  foreign  origin  and  recent  importation;  it  was 
vaguely  supposed  or  imagined  to  be  the  creation  of  the 
International,  an  alien  society  of  which  next  to  nothing 
was  known  and  everything  was  feared;  it  seemed  to  be 
condemned,  or  not  indorsed  by  distinctly  American  organi- 
zations, like  the  Knights  of  Labor;  it  was  denounced  by 
many  learned  writers  and  scholastic  authorities;  it  was 
bitterly  resented  by  employers.  Moreover,  there  was  some- 
thing ominous  and  sinister  in  the  date  chosen  for  the  be- 
ginning of  the  movement.  May  1,  to  readers  of  the 
foreign  news  despatches,  suggested  students'  riots  and  an- 
archistic outbreaks  abroad. 

When  the  day  came  it  was  seen  that  the  demand  for 
eight  hours  was  limited  chiefly  to  factories  in  which  was 
much  foreign-born  labor,  and  the  fact  increased  the  com- 
mon foreboding.  There  were  some  parades  of  foreign- 
looking  workingmen,  some  waving  of  red  flags,  and  some 
singing  of  revolutionary  hymns  that  added  to  the  disquiet 
in  timid  men's  minds,  and  then  came  manifestations  still 
worse. 

The  most  important  factory  involved  in  the  eight-hour 
strikes  was  the  great  McCormick  harvester  and  reaper 
works  on  the  far  west  side.  Close  by,  to  the  east,  were 
teeming  foreign  quarters,  mostly  of  Poles  and  Bohemians. 
The  McCormick  Company  attempted  to  fill  the  places  of 
the  strikers,  and  riot  after  riot  ensued.  Patrol  wagons 
dashing  through  the  streets  and  filled  with  armed  men 
became  a  common  sight  in  that  region.     Sometimes  men, 

83 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

and  women  too^  attacked  the  wagons  and  threw  stones  at 
the  officers. 

Throughout  the  district  meetings  were  called  every  night 
to  express  sympathy  with  the  strikers.  The  police  under- 
took to  break  up  these  meetings  on  the  ground  that  they 
tended  to  make  disorder.  I  knew  well  enough  that  they 
often  blundered  and  dispersed  gatherings  that  were  per- 
fectly orderly  and  unobjectionable,  but  the  feeling  was 
now  savage  on  both  sides  and  the  time  seemed  to  have 
gone  by  for  any  reason.  The  police  force  of  Chicago, 
always  too  small  and  now  most  unwisely  directed,  was 
overworked,  overstrained,  and  to  the  last  degree  exasper- 
ated; and  it  was  pitted  against  an  element  wherein  were 
many  men  with  a  definite  sense  of  class  injustice  and  others 
that  had  been  goaded  into  a  blind  frenzy  of  resentment. 

Many  violent  scenes  never  found  a  place  in  the  final 
history  of  these  events.  I  remember  a  drug  store  in  the 
heart  of  the  Bohemian  and  Polish  district  that  furnished 
the  stage  for  one  of  these  outbreaks,  in  its  way  rather  re- 
markable. The  reporters  were  in  the  habit  of  using  the 
telephone  in  this  drug  store  to  communicate  with  their 
offices.  The  angry  people  got  the  idea  that  the  reporters 
thus  summoned  the  police.  One  night  a  mob  gathered, 
broke  into  the  place,  and  demolished  the  contents.  In 
this  work  the  wreckers  came  upon  some  bottles  of  wines 
and  liquors;  among  them  two  jars  of  the  wine  of  colchicum. 
All  wine  looked  alike  to  them;  they  drank  of  it,  and  Fate 
avenged  the  poor  druggist  in  the  deaths  of  several  of  the 
rioters;  no  one  knew  how  many.  So  great  was  the  local 
hatred  of  the  police,  that  I  was  assured  and  believe  the 
people  would  rather  bury  their  dead  in  back  yards  than 
run  any  risk  of  having  a  policeman  enter  their  dwellings. 

The  reporters  were  often  in  great  danger;  the  feeling 

84 


The  Haymarket  and  Afterward 

was  bitter  against  the  whole  "  capitalistic  press  " ;  and  in 
the  state  of  civil  war  that  was  raging,  neither  side  stopped 
to  make  any  nice  distinctions.  More  than  once  reporters 
were  rescued  by  one  man's  efforts  from  a  crowd  that 
threatened  them.  That  one  man  was  Albert  Parsons,  my 
gaunt  and  overwrought  friend,  the  orator  of  the  lake  front. 
He  was  the  editor  of  a  fiery  labor  journal  called  The 
Alarm,  and  was  in  the  thick  of  the  eight-hour  agitation; 
but  it  appeared  that  he  favored  revolution  in  the  abstract 
and  not  in  the  concrete,  and  toward  any  individual  in 
danger  or  distress  he  had  an  intuitive  sympathy. 

The  next  events  went  swiftly  toward  the  climax.  On 
one  side  of  the  McCormick  works  in  those  days  was  a  large 
open  field  upon  which  was  a  railroad  switch.  About  this 
field  the  strikers  were  daily  gathered  in  crowds.  On  the 
afternoon  of  May  3  came  to  this  place  August  Spies,  editor 
of  the  Arbeit er  Zeitung,  a  daily  newspaper  printed  in  the 
German  language  and  devoted  to  the  radical  wing  of  the 
labor  movement.  He  was  a  handsome,  athletic  young  man, 
with  a  good  presence  and  a  gift  of  eloquence.  Climbing 
to  the  roof  of  a  freight  car  on  the  switch,  he  made  in 
German  a  fiery  speech  to  the  strikers. 

When  he  ceased,  a  shouting  crowd,  armed  with  sticks 
and  stones,  started  for  the  works  to  attack  the  strike 
breakers  there.  These,  badly  frightened,  cowered  for  shel- 
ter in  the  tower  of  the  main  building,  while  the  crowd, 
in  a  purposeless  fury,  peppered  the  windows  with  stones. 
In  the  midst  of  these  employments  the  patrol  wagons  came 
charging  up,  the  police  drew  their  revolvers,  and  began  to 
fire  into  the  dense  throng.  A  part  of  the  strikers  made  a 
momentary  stand  and  then  broke  and  fled.  Many  were 
wounded;  a  few  fatally;  how  many  was  never  well 
known. 

85 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

At  this  the  last  passions  were  aroused  on  both  sides. 
All  the  elements  in  sympathy  with  the  strike  and  the  cause 
of  labor  in  general  denounced  the  police  as  guilty  of  mon- 
strous and  inexcusable  slaughter;  the  elements  on  the  other 
side  applauded  the  work  of  the  police  as  necessary  to  en- 
force law  and  maintain  peace  and  order.  The  lines  be- 
tween the  two  sides  were  clearly  drawn.  Thousands  of 
men  that  had  no  sympathy  with  disorder  or  violence  believed 
that  war  had  been  declared  on  the  working  class ;  thousands 
of  other  men  that  should  have  known  better  believed  that 
the  cause  of  the  strikers  represented  nothing  but  sedition 
and  anarchy. 

Sympathizers  with  the  strikers  called  meetings  for  the 
next  night,  May  4,  to  denounce  the  police  for  shooting 
unarmed  men.  Of  these  the  most  important  was  to  be 
held  in  Desplaines  Street  between  Lake  and  Randolph. 
Desplaines  Street  is  a  shabby  thoroughfare  on  the  west 
side,  a  short  distance  from  the  river  and  about  half  a  mile 
from  the  edge  of  the  main  business  center.  Rather  oddly, 
the  meeting  that  was  to  pass  into  history  as  the  Haymarket 
,^  affair  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Haymarket,  which  is 
"around  a  corner  and  three  or  four  hundred  feet  away. 
Half  a  block  straight  to  the  south  was  the  Desplaines 
Street  police  station,  over  which  presided  Inspector  John 
Bonfield. 

Afterward  the  police  tried  to  make  much  of  the  form 
of  the  call  that  was  issued  for  this  meeting,  asserting  that 
it  contained  a  signal  previously  agreed  upon  for  a  rising 
of  the  anarchists  and  some  dread  deed  of  violence.  No 
one  now  need  give  any  weight  to  this  fantastic  tale, 
which  was  only  part  of  a  riot  of  imagination  that  shortly 
seized  upon  the  police.  But  it  is  true  that  in  the  jangled 
state  of  the  public  nerves  the  meeting  was  viewed  with 


The  Haymarhet  and  Afterward 

uneasiness  by  impressionable  minds.  They  thought  that 
it  ought  to  be  prevented  as  likely  to  weaken  the  authority 
of  the  police  and  to  encourage  disorder. 

The  mayor  of  the  city^  who  was  then  the  elder  Carter  H. 
Harrison,  would  not  attempt  to  interfere  with  what  might 
be  a  perfectly  lawful  and  peaceful  assembly,  but  he  at- 
tended in  person  to  see  that  no  riot  should  be  preached. 
At  the  Desplaines  Street  station  Inspector  Bonfield  mar- 
shaled the  reserves  and  had  them  in  readiness. 

The  speaker's  stand  stood  at  the  intersection  of  an 
alley,  in  the  center  of  the  block  and  at  the  rear  of  the 
building  occupied  by  Crane  Brothers'  elevator  factory. 
About  fifteen  hundred  persons  came  to  the  meeting.  August 
Spies  was  one  of  the  speakers;  another  was  my  orator  of 
the  lake  front,  Albert  Parsons;  and  another  was  Samuel 
Fielden,  of  whom  I  shall  have  more  to  say  hereafter.  The 
mayor  heard  the  addresses  of  these  men  and  could  detect 
in  them  nothing  formidable  nor  unlawful.  Parsons  had 
made  an  end,  Fielden  was  closing,  when  a  storm  was  seen 
to  be  gathering.  The  audience  began  to  disappear;  the 
mayor  started  for  home. 

At  that  moment  Inspector  John  Bonfield  marched  the  re- 
serves out  of  the  station  and  up  the  street,  himself  at  the 
head,  ordering  the  remaining  people  to  disperse  as  he 
moved  upon  them.  As  the  front  rank  of  the  platoon  reached 
the  alley  intersection  where  the  truck  stood,  a  spark  flew 
through  the  air,  either  from  the  roof  of  a  building  or  from 
behind  what  was  left  of  the  crowd,  and  alighted  among 
the  marching  police. 

There  was  a  tremendous  and  blinding  explosion,  a  roar 
that  was  plainly  heard  in  the  newspaper  offices  a  mile  away, 
and  many  policemen  fell,  dreadfully  mangled.  Their  com- 
panions did  not  falter  in  this  trying  moment.    They  closed 

87 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

up  their  ranks,  drew  their  revolvers,  and  began  to  fire  upon 
the  dumfounded  people,  who  fled  in  all  directions. 

This  was  the  famous  Haymarket  bomb  of  history.  At 
the  news  of  it  rage  and  blind  passion  seized  upon  a  great 
part  of  the  population.  Here  at  last  was  the  dynamite 
that  had  been  threatened,  the  revolution  in  full  swing,  the 
reign  of  violence  begun.  Sixty-eight  policemen  had  been 
wounded  by  that  terrible  thing;  some  in  ways  too  shocking 
to  be  described.  Seven  died  of  their  hurts ;  many  were 
maimed  for  life.  No  wonder  then  that  before  an  enemy 
like  this,  secret,  subtle,  and  deadly,  coming  unseen  and 
leaving  behind  such  death  and  disaster,  even  men  ordinarily 
well  balanced  took  leave  of  their  reason  and  clamored  hys- 
terically for  vengeance. 

Upon  the  police  commanders  the  effect  was  of  a  tem- 
porary overthrow  wrought  treacherously  by  a  malignant 
and  long-detested  foe.  A  kind  of  cold  fury  possessed 
them;  they  set  at  work  without  delay  to  exact  a  memorable 
revenge.  Never,  I  suppose,  in  any  city  was  what  is  called 
the  drag-net  worked  so  widely  and  assiduously.  For  days 
the  police  stations  were  filled  with  suspected  persons, 
rigorously  examined  in  the  method  of  the  third  degree; 
persons  for  the  most  part  that  had  no  knowledge  of  the 
bomb  nor  of  the  meeting,  nor  of  anything  connected  with 
either,  and  could  not  have.  Amid  which  turmoil,  Rudolph 
Schnaubelt,  the  man  that  threw  the  bomb,  passed  quietly 
out  of  Chicago  and  made  his  way  to  Germany  to  live  and 
die  in  peace. 

Swiftly  the  police  conception  of  the  desperate  conspiracy 
was  completed  and  arose  upon  the  frightened  vision  of  the 
people  of  Chicago.  The  bomb  was  the  work  of  a  great 
anarchistic  organization  that  had  planned  the  destruction 
of  the  city,  that  had  made  and  secreted  thousands  of  similar 

88 


The  Haymarhet  and  Afterward 

bombs,  that  had  drilled  and  armed  a  body  of  men  for  a 
murderous  uprising.  Doubt  was  swept  away  by  a  formi- 
dable showing  of  the  pieces  de  conviction.  Vast  quantities 
of  bombs,  dynamite,  and  weapons  were  gathered  from 
cellars  and  backyard  caches  all  about  the  northwest  side. 
To  one  that  still  managed  to  maintain  one's  powers  of 
observation  and  reason,  some  of  these  discoveries  soon 
wore  an  exceedingly  suspicious  look.  The  trophies  began 
to  be  marvelously  familiar.  One  in  particular,  a  gas-pipe 
bomb  that  had  been  used  as  a  copy  weight  in  a  newspaper 
composing  room,  was  brought  three  times  to  police  head- 
quarters and  placed  among  the  prize  relics  of  the  raiding. 
It  was  easily  recognized  because  the  harmless  printer  that 
had  used  it  to  hold  copy  on  his  case  had  at  some  time 
scratched  his  initials  upon  it.  Others  of  the  exhibits  seemed 
on  close  inspection  to  be  at  least  as  questionable;  but  the 
public  and  above  all  the  newspapers  were  not  disposed  to 
be  exacting.  The  bombs  fed  the  excitement  and  the  ex- 
citement stimulated  to  more  bomb  finding. 

By  no  good  hap,  I  must  think,  the  operating  of  the  drag- 
net and  the  handling  of  the  fish  taken  therein  fell  to 
Michael  J.  Schaack,  captain  of  the  Chicago  Avenue  station 
on  the  north  side,  a  man  of  restless  and  unregulated  energy 
and,  let  us  say,  of  small  discretion.  I  have  often  wondered 
whether  his  delusions  resulted  from  a  kind  of  self-hyp- 
notism or  from  mere  mania;  but  certainly  he  saw  more 
anarchists  than  vast  hell  could  hold.  Bombs,  dynamite, 
daggers,  guns,  and  pistols  danced  ever  across  his  excited 
vision ;  in  the  end  there  was  among  the  foreign-born  popula- 
tion no  society  nor  association,  however  innocent  or  even 
laudable,  that  was  not  to  his  mind  engaged  in  deviltry. 
The  labor  unions,  he  knew,  were  composed  solely  of  an- 
archists; the  Turner  societies  met  to  plan  treason,  strata- 

89 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

gems,  and  spoils;  the  literary  guilds  contrived  murder;  the 
Sunday  schools  taught  destruction.  Every  man  that  spoke 
broken  English  and  went  out  o*  nights  was  a  fearsome 
creature  whose  secret  purpose  was  to  blow  up  the  Board 
of  Trade  or  loot  Marshall  Field's  store. 

Into  the  presence  of  a  police  captain  in  this  reasonable 
frame  of  mind  was  brought  one  trembling  alien  after  an- 
other, and  from  the  cells  into  which  they  were  flung  pres- 
ently grew  a  crop  of  confessions  that  cemented  the  structure 
of  conspiracy  into  a  compact  and  durable  whole. 

From  among  the  hundreds  of  prisoners  the  police  and 
the  state's  attorney  settled  upon  certain  men  that  had 
been  conspicuous  agitators  in  the  eight-hour  movement; 
leaders  of  the  advanced  and  radical  wing  of  the  labor 
element,  fervid  orators  of  the  Sunday  meetings,  and  men 
that  had  been  reported  by  the  press  aforetime  as  making 
the  bitterest  attacks  upon  wealth  and  society.  These  were 
August  Spies,  the  editor  of  the  Arbeit er  Zeitung  and  the 
orator  at  the  McCormick  works  riot;  Michael  Schwab,  his 
assistant;  Samuel  Fielden,  whom  we  saw  speaking  at  the 
Desplaines  Street  meeting;  Adolph  Fischer,  a  young  com- 
positor on  Spies's  paper;  George  Engel,  an  elderly  keeper 
of  a  little  toy  shop  on  the  west  side;  and  Oscar  Neebe,  a 
German  newspaper  man,  who  had  some  connection,  more 
or  less  shadowy,  with  Spies's  concern. 

The  police  wanted  Parsons  also,  who  was  particularly 
well  known  to  them  because  of  his  speeches,  but  he  was 
not  to  be  found.  None  of  these  men  was  accused  of  throw- 
ing the  bomb,  nor  could  be ;  what  was  alleged  against  them 
was  that  they  had  plotted  the  bomb  incident  as  the  be- 
ginning of  the  revolution  they  had  agitated. 

To  these  prisoners  was  now  added,  in  manner  very  dra- 
matic, a  figure  of  a  very  different  type.     All  the  others 

90 


The  Haymarhet  and  Afterward 

were  avowed  agitators  and  more  or  less  in  the  public  eye; 
Louis  Lingg,  of  whom  Chicago  had  never  heard  before, 
was  no  agitator,  but  a  secret,  resourceful,  wily,  and  daring 
terrorist,  of  the  kind  that  occasionally  comes  to  the  surface 
in  Russia  to  shake  men's  hearts  with  some  self-immolating 
assassination. 

It  was  almost  by  accident  that  information  was  gathered 
of  a  mysterious  young  man  that  lived  in  the  back  room  of 
a  wretched  house,  tinkered  day  and  night  upon  things  sup- 
posed to  be  bombs,  and  was  said  to  be  of  tremendous  phys- 
ical strength  and  dangerous  character.  Herman  Schuettler, 
now  assistant  chief  of  police  and  one  of  the  bravest  men 
I  have  ever  known,  undertook  the  arrest.  He  ascertained 
that  Lingg  was  in  his  lodging,  which  was  on  the  second 
floor  in  the  rear.  Schuettler  removed  his  shoes  and  in  his 
stockings  crept  up  the  stairs  to  the  door.  He  turned  the 
handle  noiselessly  and  found  the  door  was  locked.  Then 
he  put  forth  the  strength  of  his  gigantic  frame  and  burst 
the  door  inward  from  the  hinges.  Lingg  was  at  work  at  a 
table  under  the  window.  At  the  sound  he  swept  about, 
gave  one  leap,  and  was  at  the  policeman's  throat.  Schuet- 
tler, as  I  have  indicated,  was  a  powerful  man  of  much 
and  varied  experience;  he  once  killed  a  desperado  with  a 
single  blow  of  his  fist.  He  has  told  me  often  that  he 
never  had  an  encounter  like  that  with  Lingg.  They  rolled 
all  about  the  floor  of  the  room,  down  the  stairs,  and  into 
the  street,  fighting  like  demons.  Schuettler  got  Lingg's 
thumb  in  his  mouth  and  almost  bit  it  off,  a  fact  from  which 
the  nature  of  the  struggle  may  be  surmised. 

They  got  the  wild  beast  to  Captain  Schaack's  police 
station  and  locked  him  up,  and  without  knowing  it  they 
had  made  no  other  capture  so  important.  For  Lingg's 
was  the  hand  that  had  made  the  bomb ;  Lingg  was  the  close 

91 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

friend  of  Rudolph  Schnaubelt^  who  threw  the  bomb;  and 
if  I  do  not  greatly  err,  the  whole  shocking  business  in 
Desplaines  Street  was  of  Lingg's  sole  conceiving.  He 
was  the  originator  and  leader  of  the  Lehr  und  Wehr  Verein, 
the  only  real  anarchist  society  in  Chicago;  he  was  the 
undisguised  and  venomous  enemy  of  all  social  order;  and 
he  was  of  such  extraordinary  strength  of  body  and  capacity 
of  mind  that  here  truly  was  one  man  whom  orderly  persons 
had  reason  to  fear. 

Some  time  after  the  prisoners  thus  finally  selected  were 
first  arraigned  for  examination^  another  was  added  to  their 
number.  Albert  Parsons  was  in  safe  retreat  in  Wisconsin. 
The  police  had  practically  abandoned  the  search  for  him. 
He  read  that  the  others  had  been  arrested  and  were  doubt- 
less to  be  held  for  trial.  According  to  his  own  statement, 
which  there  is  no  reason  to  question,  he  felt  that  his  place 
was  with  his  companions;  that  if  they  were  to  be  tried 
he  ought  to  share  their  situation.  He  wrote  to  his  counsel, 
Captain  W.  P.  Black,  that  he  desired  to  give  himself  up. 
Captain  Black  replied,  advising  him  to  do  so,  since  he  had 
committed  no  crime  and  had  nothing  to  fear.  Whereupon, 
to  the  vast  surprise  of  police  and  public.  Parsons  one  morn- 
ing walked  quietly  into  the  court  room,  opened  the  gate  to 
the  bar,  and  took  a  seat  with  the  other  men  accused. 

I  need  not  follow  the  trial  nor  the  various  stages  of  the 
long  and  futile  legal  battle  that  followed.  A  large  part  of 
the  world  of  men  seems  to  have  accepted  the  belief  that 
the  defendants  were  tried  on  the  charge  that  they  were  an- 
archists. It  may  be  well,  therefore,  to  recall  that  they  were 
tried  on  the  charge  that  they  were  accessories  before  the 
fact  in  the  murders  of  Mathias  J.  Degan  and  others,  Degan 
being  the  first  of  the  wounded  policemen  to  die  of  his  hurts. 
The  manner  in  which  they  were  accessory  was  alleged  to 

92 


The  Haymarket  and  Afterward 

be  that  in  speeches  and  writings  they  had  instigated  the 
crime. 

Through  all  the  trial,  which  lasted  eight  weeks,  the  other 
defendants  seemed  sensible  of  the  perils  of  their  situation. 
Lingg  seemed  never  to  know  nor  to  care.  Tilted  back  in 
his  chair,  an  unlighted  cigar  in  the  corner  of  his  mouth, 
he  regarded  the  whole  affair  with  savage  scorn.  He  sat 
apart  and  held  no  communion  with  his  fellows,  of  whom, 
strange  to  say,  only  Spies  had  any  knowledge  of  him  pre- 
vious to  his  arrest.  He  took  no  interest  in  the  defense, 
suggested  nothing  to  his  counsel,  and  sullenly  refused  to 
make  any  statement.  When  arraigned  for  sentence,  the 
others  delivered  elaborate  speeches.  Parsons  speaking  for 
eight  hours  and  explaining  in  detail  his  theory  of  the  labor 
movement.  Lingg  uttered  only  some  curt,  defiant  sentences 
in  German,  ending  with  these  words :  *'  I  despise  you.  I 
despise  your  order,  your  laws,  your  force-propped  authority. 
Hang  me  for  it !  " 

Some  of  the  aspects  of  that  trial  were  of  a  nature  that 
most  persons  believing  in  justice  would  gladly  forget.  Men 
that  admitted  a  deep-seated  prejudice  against  the  accused, 
or  even  a  conviction  of  their  guilt,  were  allowed  to  sit  on 
the  jury.  I  doubt  now  if  any  fair-minded  man  reviewing 
the  evidence  would  give  credence  to  much  that  was  ad- 
mitted as  a  basis  for  the  verdict  of  guilty.  One  witness 
testified  that  he  heard  Parsons  and  Fielden  make  incendiary 
harangues  at  the  Desplaines  Street  meeting.  He  produced 
in  court  notes  that  he  said  he  had  written  in  his  overcoat 
pocket  confirming  his  assertion.  He  was  far  more  skillful 
than  I,  then,  for  I  have  tried  to  take  notes  in  the  same 
way  and  have  never  been  able  to  decipher  so  much  as  one 
word  that  I  had  thus  written. 

Beyond  all  this  was  the  simple  fact  that  these  men  were 

93 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

accused  of  instigating  a  specific  crime,  and  yet,  so  far  as 
the  trial  was  concerned,  nobody  knew  who  committed  that 
crime.  To  this  day  the  official  record  on  that  vital  point 
is  incomplete;  for  Schnaubelt  was  never  brought  into  the 
case,  his  part  in  the  affair  was  never  officially  disclosed. 
So  far  as  the  record  goes,  the  bomb  that  night  in  Desplaines 
Street  might  have  fallen  by  accident,  or  been  hurled  by  a 
maniac,  or  by  someone  that  never  heard  of  the  existence 
of  the  accused  men.  Until  that  gap  could  be  filled  it 
seemed  to  me  then  and  seems  to  me  now  that  to  try  to 
establish  instigation  was  very  idle.  If  we  did  not  know 
who  committed  the  crime,  how  could  we  determine  what 
had  instigated  him  to  it? 

But  the  eight  men  were  convicted,  nominally  by  the  jury, 
in  reality  by  a  misinformed  public  opinion  resolutely  bent 
upon  having  a  hanjging.  Anything  more  like  the  spirit  of  a 
lynching  I  have  never  known  under  the  forms  of  law. 
Blood  was  to  have  blood;  I  grieve  to  state  there  was  but 
little  consideration  as  to  whose  blood.  Neebe  was  sen- 
tenced to  fifteen  years'  imprisonment;  the  others  to  be 
hanged. 

While  the  fourteen  months*  battle  against  the  verdict 
was  waged  to  and  through  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  the  men  were  confined  in  the  Cook  County 
jail.  It  was  often  my  duty  to  see  them  there.  Steel  bars, 
reinforced  with  a  steel  netting,  separated  them  from  their 
visitors;  but  through  this  barrier  conversation  was  not 
difficult.  With  all  except  Lingg  I  had  many  interviews. 
All,  even  to  Parsons,  regarded  me,  because  of  my  news- 
paper connections,  as  their  natural  enemy  and  part  of 
the  machinery  of  the  "  capitalistic  press  '*  that  had  dragged 
them  down;  but  that  once  admitted  on  both  sides,  they 
were  always  approachable  and  grew  to  be  even  cordial. 

94> 


The  Haymarket  and  Afterward 

Observing  them  thus  closely  and  repeatedly,  and  as  a 
matter  of  my  profession,  I  had  after  a  time  a  clear  under- 
standing as  to  each  of  them. 

Spies  was  in  some  ways  a  typical  graduate  of  the  Turn 
Verein,  well  educated,  magnificently  set  up,  fluent  and 
plausible  in  English  as  in  German,  a  blue-eyed  Saxon, 
emotional,  sentimental,  and  rash.  His  face,  beneath  thick, 
curling  brown  hair,  of  which  he  was  rather  vain,  was  hand- 
some but  not  strong;  long,  sweeping  brown  mustaches  con- 
tributed a  dubious  ornament  above  a  fat  and,  to  my  think- 
ing, a  feeble  chin.  Schwab  was  the  stage  ideal  of  a  German 
university  professor,  a  thin,  angular,  sallow  person,  spec- 
tacled, long-haired,  black-bearded,  unkempt.  I  suppose  him 
to  have  had  the  best  mental  equipment  in  the  party,  but 
it  was  a  mind  wholly  speculative  and  dreamy.  His  manner 
of  speaking  fitted  his  appearance,  being  dry,  remote,  and 
for  the  most  part  extremely  uninteresting.  I  could  never 
understand  how  he  came  to  be  in  such  a  position,  for  he 
seemed  to  have  in  his  make-up  neither  enthusiasm  nor 
sympathy  and  no  more  emotion  than  a  grindstone.  Fischer, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  to  be  read  like  a  book;  he  was  a 
hot  young  proselyte,  a  half-baked  student  of  German  philo- 
sophical anarchism,  and  in  his  own  mind  exalted  into  mar- 
tyrdom. George  Engel's  creed  was  the  product  of  poverty 
and  misfortune.  As  a  boy  he  had  been  left  an  orphan, 
he  had  been  kicked  from  pillar  to  post,  and  it  was  late  in 
his  life  of  toil  when  he  laid  hold  upon  some  vague  ideas 
of  revolt.  He  had  a  chubby,  good-natured  face,  looked  like 
an  elderly  German  bartender,  seemed  to  cherish  no  re- 
sentments, talked  freely  and  entertainingly  to  anybody 
that  approached  him,  and  viewed  his  fate  with  a  mix- 
ture of  stoicism  and  cynicism  common  in  the  kind  of 
Germans  that  commit  suicide.     As  to  Fielden  I   hunted 

95 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

long  for  a  phrase  that  fitted  his  peculiar  make-up  and 
years  afterward  I  found  it  in  a  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
tale.  He  was  **  a  mild,  fatherly  old  galoot."  In  England, 
where  he  was  born,  he  had  been  a  Methodist  field  preacher. 
In  this  country  he  had  been  first  preacher  and  then  team- 
ster, and  eventually  an  agitator  in  the  labor  movement;  not 
for  selfish  reasons,  as  I  gathered,  but  because  the  cause 
appealed  to  his  emotional  sympathies.  He  was  much  the 
patriarch  with  his  long  flowing  beard  streaked  with  gray, 
and  to  conceive  of  him  as  in  any  way  a  dangerous  person 
seemed  a  suggestion  of  humor.  Neebe  was  a  colorless  crea- 
ture, mild  and  uninteresting.  His  implication  with  the 
others  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  things  I  have  ever 
known,  for  the  trial  developed  nothing  that  showed  he  had 
any  more  connection  with  the  theory  of  the  prosecution  than 
I  had.  He  seemed  to  have  been  convicted  because  he  had 
been  indicted,  and  when  I  compared  the  evidence  with  the 
verdict  I  confess  I  entertained  some  profound  misgivings. 
For  Parsons,  I  may  say  frankly,  I  conceived  a  strong 
liking,  and  whatever  may  have  been  the  man's  errors,  I 
think  it  was  impossible  for  anyone  to  know  him  without 
liking  him.  There  was  something  immensely  engaging 
about  his  candid  manner,  his  picturesque  speech,  his  mani- 
fest sincerity,  and  his  abiding  good-nature.  He  had  trav- 
eled much  and  read  much,  but  his  thinking  usually  showed 
an  incomplete  operation,  his  original  education  had  been 
meager,  and  his  reading,  I  think,  rather  superficial.  As 
for  that,  it  is  enough,  I  suppose,  to  say  that  he  habitually 
spoke  of  anarchism  and  socialism  as  meaning  the  same 
thing,  which  is  as  if  one  should  confound  the  north  pole 
with  the  south.  He  had  rather  a  good  taste  in  poetry,  sang 
well,  spoke  well,  loved  literature,  and  was  a  genial  and 
attractive  companion. 

96 


The  Haymarhet  and  Afterward 

After  so  many  years  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  the 
half-forgotten  struggle  ought  to  have  died  away  and  men 
may  now  speak  candidly  and  without  restraint  of  these 
things  as  they  really  were.  Let  me  then  record  my  de- 
liberate conviction  that  Albert  Parsons  never  entertained 
the  thought  of  harm  against  any  human  being,  for  I  have 
seldom  met  a  man  of  a  more  genuine  kindness  of  heart; 
and  if  the  men  he  denounced  in  his  speeches  had  been  in 
actual  danger  before  him  I  am  certain  he  would  have  been 
the  first  to  rush  to  their  defense  from  physical  harm.  And 
while  I  am  on  this  subject,  I  may  add  an  expression  of 
a  wonder  growing  upon  me  for  many  years  that  no  one 
has  ever  paid  an  adequate  tribute  to  this  man.  I  have  not 
the  slightest  sympathy  with  his  doctrines,  if  he  believed  in 
the  violence  he  seemed  sometimes  to  preach,  which  I  could 
never  tell.  I  have  lived  in  the  world  long  enough  to  know 
that  the  social  wrongs  that  moved  him  to  protest  can  never 
be  cured  by  violence.  Say,  then,  that  the  man  erred  griev- 
ously; if  his  error  had  been  ten  times  as  great  it  ought  to 
have  been  wiped  from  human  recollection  by  his  sacrifice, 
and  there  should  remain  but  the  one  image  of  him,  leaving 
his  place  of  safety  and  voluntarily  entering  the  prisoner's 
dock.  I  doubt  if  that  magnanimous  act  has  its  parallel  in 
history.  A  hundred  men  have  been  elevated  to  be  national 
heroes  for  deeds  far  less  heroic.  The  fact  that  after  all 
these  years  it  is  still  obscured  and  men  hesitate  to  speak 
about  it  is  marvelous  testimony  to  the  power  of  the  press 
to  produce  enduring  impressions.  Even  the  other  stagger- 
ing fact  that  in  the  history  of  American  courts  this  is  the 
only  man  that  ever  came  voluntarily  and  gave  himself  up 
and  then  was  hanged,  even  that  seems  to  be  eliminated 
from  the  little  consideration  that  is  ever  bestowed  upon  a 
figure  of  courage  so  extraordinary. 

97 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

Similarly  I  wondered  while  all  these  events  were  passing 
before  me  and  wonder  now,  that  no  one  ever  stopped  to 
inquire  why  such  men  as  Parsons  and  Fielden  were  in 
revolt.  Granted  freely  that  their  idea  of  the  best  manner 
of  making  a  protest  was  utterly  wrong  and  impossible; 
granted  that  they  went  not  the  best  way  to  work.  But 
what  was  it  that  drove  them  into  attack  upon  the  social 
order  as  they  found  it.^  They  and  thousands  of  other  men 
that  stood  with  them  were  not  bad  men_,  nor  depraved,,  nor 
bloodthirsty,  nor  hard-hearted,  nor  criminal,  nor  selfish,  nor 
crazy.  Then  what  was  it  that  evoked  a  complaint  so  bitter 
and  deep-seated?  In  all  the  clamor  that  filled  the  press 
for  the  execution  of  the  law  and  the  supremacy  of  order 
not  one  writer  ever  stopped  to  ask  this  obvious  question. 
Not  one  ever  contemplated  the  simple  fact  that  men  do 
not  band  themselves  together  to  make  a  protest  without 
the  belief  that  they  have  something  to  protest  about,  and 
that  in  any  organized  state  of  society  a  widespread  protest 
is  something  for  grave  inquiry.  I  thought  then  and  I  think 
now  that  a  few  words  devoted  to  this  suggestion  would 
have  been  of  far  greater  service  to  society  than  the  in- 
sensate demand  for  blood  and  more  blood  with  which  the 
journals  of  Chicago  were  mostly  filled. 

But  the  strange  figure  in  that  group  at  the  Cook  County 
jail,  the  strangest  man  I  have  ever  known  and  the  least 
human,  was  Louis  Lingg.  His  origin  and  story  were  never 
definitely  ascertained,  but  he  was  said,  on  good  authority, 
to  be  the  illegitimate  son  of  a  German  nobleman.  He  was 
a  kind  of  modern  berserker,  utterly  reckless  of  consequences 
to  himself,  driving  on  in  a  sustaining  fury  of  vengeance 
on  the  whole  social  order.  Little  of  his  abnormal  physical 
strength  was  apparent  when  he  was  in  repose.  He  was 
slightly  under  the  average  height,  very  compactly  built, 

98 


The  Haymarhet  and  Afterward 

with  tawny  hair,  a  face  long  and  strong,  and  the  most 
extraordinary  eyes  I  have  ever  seen  in  a  human  head,  steel 
gray,  exceedingly  keen,  and  bearing  in  their  depths  a  kind 
of  cold  and  hateful  fire.  His  hands  were  small  and  delicate ; 
his  head  large  and  well-shaped;  his  face  indicated  some- 
thing of  breeding  and  culture.  It  was  when  he  walked, 
as  often  I  saw  him  going  to  and  fro  alone  in  the  jail 
corridor,  that  he  seemed  most  formidable;  for  then  his 
lithe,  gliding,  and  peculiarly  silent  step,  and  the  play  of 
the  muscles  about  the  shoulders,  suggested  something  cat- 
like or  abnormal,  an  impression  heightened  by  the  leonine 
wave  of  hair  he  wore  when  he  was  arrested ;  but  when  I 
knew  him  he  was  closely  cropped  and  clean-shaven.  All 
in  all,  for  a  small  man,  he  was  a  terrific  figure.  To  any 
question  or  remark  he  was  wont  to  respond  with  a  silent 
stare  of  malignant  and  calculating  hatred,  rather  discon- 
certing, and  I  think  that  in  those  days  few  strangers  ob- 
served him  without  a  secret  feeling  of  relief  that  he  was 
on  the  other  side  of  the  steel  bars.  He  was  the  only  really 
dangerous  man  among  the  seven  and  the  only  anarchist. 

Lingg's  ostensible  way  of  life  had  been  as  a  teacher  (not 
in  the  public  schools)  and  a  carpenter;  but  his  real  business 
was  to  further  the  creed  of  terror.  He  had  been  well 
educated  in  Germany,  but  his  English  was  rudimentary. 
He  had  a  sweetheart,  a  tall,  statuesque  brunette,  exceed- 
ingly bold  and  handsome,  who  came  frequently  from  the 
west  side  to  see  him.  With  her  alone  he  held  what  could 
be  called  human  conversation,  and  they  always  talked  in 
whispers  and  apart. 

Daily  in  those  last  weeks  there  came  to  the  jail  that 
other  strange  figure  that  played  in  this  story  a  part  so 
pitiable  and  still  so  strained  and  bizarre.  The  common  ex- 
planation of  Nina  Van  Zandt's  performance  was  that  she 

99 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

was  insane,  but  after  the  curtain  had  fallen  on  the  tragedy- 
she  gave  no  further  evidence  of  irrationality,  and  for  years 
was  lost  to  the  public  view  in  a  way  of  life  sedate  enough 
for  any  taste.  At  her  own  motion  she  had  been  married 
(by  proxy)  to  Spies  after  his  conviction,  although  she  had 
never  seen  him  until  his  trial  and  had  never  exchanged 
with  him  a  hundred  words.  She  was  about  twenty-four, 
slenderly  fashioned,  handsome,  always  exquisitely  gowned, 
and  having  the  deportment  of  a  refined  and  educated  woman. 
It  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  figure  more  incongruous  in 
such  a  place  and  in  such  circumstances,  and  the  impulse 
that  drove  her  there  may  be  something  for  alienists  or  it 
may  be  something  infinitely  beyond  their  domain.  Doubt- 
less she  thought  that  her  marriage  to  Spies  would  awaken 
public  sympathy  in  his  behalf;  but  in  the  storm  of  ridicule 
that  arose  his  cause  was  really  injured. 

When  she  came  to  the  jail  she  would  glance  neither  to 
right  nor  to  left,  nor  give  heed  to  any  person  or  thing, 
but  ^o  straight  to  the  steel  bars.  Upon  them  she  leaned 
from  one  side,  and  Spies  from  the  other;  and  thus  they 
would  talk  the  hour  out.  Her  attitude  toward  her  hus- 
band (in  name)  was  as  of  one  very  much  in  love  with  him; 
but  he  seemed  always  ill  at  ease  and  bored.  When  eleven 
o'clock  came  and  the  guard,  banging  with  wooden  club 
upon  the  steel  bars,  gave  notice  that  the  visitors'  hour  had 
passed.  Miss  Van  Zandt  would  thrust  a  forefinger  through 
the  steel  net,  and  Spies  would  kiss  it;  then  he  would  put 
through  a  finger  for  her  to  kiss;  and  in  that  manner  they 
parted,  with  apparent  reluctance  on  her  part  and  relief 
on  his. 

The  attitude  of  the  public,  meantime,  was  such  as  to 
seem  now  a  curious  by-plot  to  this  strange  tragedy.  The 
majority  believed  that  the  men  should  be  put  to  death, 

100 


The  Haymarket  and  AU^f^^td 

being  convinced  that  they  were  dangerous  creatures  repre- 
senting murder  and  destruction,  a  view  for  which  no  man 
could  be  much  censured  if  he  read  the  Chicago  news- 
papers. But  as  the  days  went  by  there  developed  a 
considerable  and  increasing  opposition  that  spoke  for  clem- 
ency. Among  the  working  class,  the  large  and  powerful 
Central  Labor  Union  was  a  unit  against  the  sentence  and 
its  course  created  a  foolish  but  common  belief  that  it 
was  composed  of  wild-eyed  anarchists  and  bomb  throwers. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  few  among  its  membership  had  the 
least  tendency  toward  even  philosophical  anarchism,  but 
all  had  a  feeling  that  the  condemned  men  had  been  the 
champions,  however  wrong-headed,  of  the  working  class, 
and  for  that  reason  and  none  other  were  being  sacrificed. 
Outside  of  labor  and  its  influence  were  many  that  pro- 
tested. Leonard  Swett,  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  we  have 
had,  declared  that  the  verdict  was  wrong  in  point  of  law 
and  should  not  be  carried  out.  General  Benjamin  F.  But- 
ler supported  his  contention.  Colonel  IngersoU,  with  char- 
acteristic courage,  took  a  determined  stand  against  the  hang- 
ing, terming  it  a  judicial  murder.  Henry  Demorest  Lloyd 
labored  without  ceasing  to  arouse  a  public  sentiment  in 
favor  of  lenity.  William  Dean  Howells  and  many  other 
kindly  and  broad-minded  men  protested  on  humanitarian 
grounds.  William  Morris  from  London  uttered  a  vehe- 
ment denunciation.  George  Francis  Train  broke  the 
rule  of  silence  that  for  more  than  ten  years  he  had  im- 
posed upon  himself  and  came  to  Chicago  to  speak  against 
the  sentence.  Meetings  were  held  and  petitions  were  cir- 
culated in  the  same  interest.  Of  all  the  condenmed  men 
Parsons  had  the  largest  share  of  sympathy.  The  mag- 
nanimity of  his  surrender  and  the  sincerity  of  his  motives 
made  a  deep  impression  on  some  minds.    Governor  Oglesby 

101 


Thes^  Shifting  Scenes 

understood  the  peculiar  position  in  which  the  man  stood 
and  desired  to  save  him ;  an  intimation  was  made  to  Captain 
Black,  a  man  of  high  character  and  much  esteemed  by  the 
people  of  Chicago,  that  if  Parsons  would  sign  a  petition 
for  clemency  the  governor  would  grant  it.  In  spite  of 
every  argument  and  appeal.  Parsons  refused  to  sign  such 
a  document.  One  reason  that  he  made  public  was  that  he 
was  an  innocent  man  and  entitled  not  to  a  commutation  of 
his  sentence  but  to  his  freedom.  Another  reason  that  he 
confided  to  Captain  Black  was  that  if  clemency  were  ex- 
tended to  him  it  would  seal  the  fates  of  his  comrades  and 
constitute  on  his  part  an  act  of  desertion  of  which  he  would 
not  be  guilty.  And  so  supplementing  one  act  of  heroic 
self-sacrifice  with  another,  he  accepted  his  doom. 

The  day  appointed  for  the  hanging  was  Friday,  Novem- 
ber 11,  1887.  On  Thursday  the  10th,  the  governor  an- 
nounced his  decision  on  the  fervent  appeals  that  had  been 
made  to  him  in  behalf  of  the  condemned  men.  He  com- 
muted to  life  imprisonment  the  sentences  of  Fielden  and 
Schwab,  but  he  refused  to  interfere  with  the  sentences  of 
Parsons,  Spies,  Fischer,  Engel,  and  Lingg.  Although  she 
had  been  thoroughly  searched  whenever  she  visited  the 
jail,  Lingg's  sweetheart  had  managed  to  convey  to  him  a 
smell  dynamite  bomb.  At  a  quarter  of  nine  o'clock  on 
the  morning  of  that  Thursday,  Lingg  thrust  this  bomb  into 
his  mouth  and  exploded  it.  He  lived  until  nearly  three 
o'clock  that  afternoon.  Though  frightfully  mangled  and 
doubtless  suffering  acute  agony,  he  never  uttered  a  groan 
nor  one  expression  of  pain.  In  some  way  he  still  managed 
to  smoke  a  cigarette  or  two  and  so  waited  for  the  end.  A 
story  was  printed  that  a  short  time  before  he  died  he  threw 
himself  upon  the  floor  and  on  his  hands  and  knees  traveled 
toward  an  open  door  in  the  prison  ward.    Before  he  reached 

102 


The  Haymarhet  and  Afterward 

it  he  was  caught  and  carried  back  to  his  bed.  Behind  that 
door  were  concealed  other  dynamite  bombs  wherewith  it 
was  his  intention  to  blow  up  the  building.  This  was  the 
story,  soberly  printed,  commonly  believed.  But  the  history 
of  Louis  Lingg  was  strange  enough  without  the  addition 
of  the  fantastic  and  the  impossible. 

Meantime,  outside,  the  nervous  strain  upon  the  public 
had  become  almost  intolerable.  The  stories  circulated, 
printed,  and  believed  in  those  days  seem  now  to  belong  to 
the  literature  of  lunacy.  There  were  20,000  armed  and 
desperate  anarchists  in  Chicago,  an  assault  upon  the  jail 
had  been  planned,  all  the  principal  buildings  w6re  to  be 
blown  up,  the  streets  were  thronged  with  anarchist  spies, 
the  city  was  in  imminent  peril,  the  Central  Labor  Union 
had  decreed  a  holiday  that  all  its  members  might  assemble 
and  take  part  in  the  attack  upon  the  jail,  innumerable 
anarchists  had  sworn  that  the  men  should  never  be  hanged. 
The  newspaper  offices,  the  banks,  and  the  Board  of  Trade 
were  guarded  night  and  day.  Nearly  all  citizens  carried 
weapons.  I  remember  finding  at  ten  o'clock  at  night  a  gun 
store  still  open  in  Madison  Street  and  crowded  with  men 
that  were  buying  revolvers,  and  knowing  the  state  of  the 
public  mind  the  spectacle  did  not  strike  me  then  as  in  the 
least  strange  but  wholly  natural.  The  dread  of  some 
catastrophe  impending  was  not  alone  in  men's  talk  but  in 
their  very  faces  and  in  the  air. 

To  the  spectacle  that  on  the  morning  of  that  11th  of 
November  Chicago  presented,  there  has  been  surely  no  par- 
allel in  any  American  city  in  time  of  peace.  One  block 
from  the  jail  in  each  direction  ropes  were  stretched  across 
the  streets  and  traffic  was  suspended.  Behind  the  ropes 
were  lines  of  policemen  with  riot  rifles.  Thence  to  the  jail 
the  sidewalks  were  patrolled  by  other  policemen  similarly 

lOS 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

armed.  The  jail  itself  was  guarded  like  a  precarious  out- 
post in  a  critical  battle.  Around  it  lines  of  policemen  were 
drawn;  from  every  window  policemen  looked  forth,  rifles 
in  hand:  the  roof  was  black  with  policemen.  The  display 
of  force  was  overpowering;  the  place  was  like  a  fort. 

At  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  reporters  were  admitted ; 
after  that  all  entrance  was  denied.  From  six  until  nigh 
upon  eleven  we  stood  there,  two  hundred  of  us,  cooped  in 
the  jailer's  office,  waiting  with  nerves  played  upon  by  more 
disquieting  rumors  than  I  have  ever  heard  in  a  like  period. 
So  great  was  the  nervous  tension  that  two  of  the  reporters, 
tried  and  experienced  men,  turned  sick  and  faint  and  had 
to  be  assisted  to  the  exterior,  whence  they  could  not  return. 
In  all  my  experience  this  was  the  only  occasion  on  which 
any  reporter  flinched  from  duty,  however  trying;  but  it  is 
hard  now  to  understand  the  tremendous  power  of  the  in- 
fectional  panic  that  had  seized  upon  the  city  and  had  its 
storm  center  at  that  jail.  Perhaps  some  idea  of  it  can 
be  gained  from  the  fact  that  while  we  waited  there  a  Chicago 
newspaper  issued  an  extra  seriously  announcing  that  the 
jail  had  been  mined  by  anarchists,  great  stores  of  dynamite 
placed  beneath,  and  at  the  moment  of  the  hanging  the 
whole  structure  and  all  in  it  were  to  be  destroyed. 

The  word  came  at  last,  we  marched  down  the  dim  cor- 
ridor to  the  court  appointed  for  the  terrible  thing,  we 
saw  it  done,  we  saw  the  four  lives  crushed  out  according 
to  the  fashion  of  surviving  barbarism.  There  was  no  mine 
exploded,  there  was  no  attack,  the  Central  Labor  Union 
did  not  march  its  cohorts  to  the  jail  nor  elsewhere,  no 
armed  nor  unarmed  anarchists  appeared  to  menace  the 
supremacy  of  the  state.  In  all  men's  eyes,  I  was  told,  all 
about  the  city,  was  something  of  the  strain  and  anxiety 
that  made  all  the  faces  about  me  look  so  drawn  and  pallid; 

104j 


The  Haymarket  and  Afterward 

but  there  was  nowhere  in  Chicago  the  lifting  of  a  lawless 
hand  that  day.  It  sounds  now  a  horrible  and  a  cruel  thing 
to  say,  yet  visibly^  most  visibly,  all  other  men*s  hearts  were 
lightened  because  those  four  men*s  hearts  were  stilled. 

One  other  strange  scene  closed  the  drama,  for  who  that 
saw  it  can  ever  forget  that  Sunday  funeral  procession,  the 
black  hearses,  the  marching  thousands,  the  miles  upon  miles 
of  densely  packed  and  silent  streets,  the  sobering  impres- 
sion of  the  amnesty  of  death,  the  still  more  sobering  ques- 
tion whether  we  had  done  right?  The  short  November 
day  closed  upon  the  services  at  the  cemetery;  in  the  dark- 
ness the  strangely  silent  crowds  straggled  back  to  the  city. 
There  was  no  outbreak  at  the  graves  nor  elsewhere;  only 
everywhere  this  silence  like  a  sign  of  brooding  thought. 

So  the  day  ended  and  timid  citizens  drew  a  breath  of 
relief  that  the  prophesied  civil  war  had  not  been  declared. 

And  yet  what  was  it  of  which  they  had  been  so  fright- 
ened.^ What  was  the  substance  of  the  terror  that  had  so 
shaken  the  city  for  many  a  day? 

Six  men  in  buckram,  no  more.  Humiliating  as  it  is, 
even  now  to  admit,  yet  so  stands  the  fact.  I  cannot  see 
how  any  good  can  come  from  obscuring  the  truth,  and  the 
truth  is  that  Chicago  was  at  no  time  in  more  danger  of 
an  anarchist  uprising,  in  more  danger  of  an  outbreak  of 
violence,  in  more  danger  of  destruction  by  dynamite,  than 
any  other  American  city  was  then  and  is  now.  Soon  after 
the  hanging,  certain  matters  not  essential  to  this  narrative 
induced  the  New  York  World,  with  which  I  was  then  con- 
nected, to  ascertain  by  impartial  investigation  whether  the 
story  that  all  the  newspapers  had  accepted  for  veritable 
had  in  fact  any  foundation.  The  investigation  went  on 
for  months.  Slowly  the  conclusion  was  forced  upon  me 
that  the  idea  of  an  anarchist  conspiracy   was   purely  a 

105 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

dream.  There  had  been  in  Chicago  a  very  small  group, 
comprising  perhaps  fourteen  in  all,  of  physical  force  an- 
archists, depraved  and  desperate  men  of  the  type  that 
assassinated  Sadi  Carnot  and  the  king  of  Italy.  Of  these 
Lingg  was  the  leader,  Schnaubelt  was  an  associate,  and 
probably  these  two  alone  possessed  the  courage  for  an 
overt  act. 

Next  was  a  large  number  of  workingmen  that  did  not 
believe  in  acts  of  violence  and  had  no  sympathy  with  an- 
archism, but  felt  that  the  working  class  had  been  oppressed 
and  maltreated  by  the  police.  These  were  often  on  con- 
viction firm  opponents  of  the  wage  system,  but  they  were 
no  champions  of  armed  revolt.  They  might  be  willing  to 
throw  brick  bats  at  strike  breakers,  to  make  speeches  de- 
nouncing capital,  and  if  need  be  to  jeer  the  police,  but 
they  were  no  anarchists.  Beyond  these  were  many  other 
men  that  theoretically  favored  the  eight-hour  movement  and 
the  cause  of  labor,  and  felt  that  the  four  put  to  death 
there  in  the  jail  had  been  cruelly  sacrificed,  but  had  no 
convictions  nor  impulses  of  greater  danger  to  society.  And 
this  was  the  sum  total  of  all  the  sedition  and  disaffection 
and  perilous  doctrine;  unless  we  choose  to  characterize  as 
an  anarchist  every  person  that  entertains  doubts  whether 
present  conditions  represent  the  ultimate  state  of  man- 
kind. 

Not  yet,  however,  did  we  secure  peace.  The  public 
nerves  had  been  too  much  shaken,  and  besides,  there  were 
other  sources  of  disquiet  and  other  reasons  for  prolonging 
public  tension.  Captain  Ebersold,  who  was  then  chief 
of  police,  has  testified  that  Captain  Schaack  wanted  to  go 
on  forming  anarchist  clubs  and  raiding  them.  Ebersold 
refused.  Yet  for  months  we  were  disturbed  by  new  stories 
and  red  alarms  of  anarchists'  plots  and  deadly  plans  of 

106 


The  Haymarhet  and  Afterward 

uprising  until,  as  sometimes  happens,  we  were  saved  from 
further  foolishness  by  a  wholesome  application  of  anti- 
climax. 

This  came  about  in  the  following  manner.  By  the  part 
of  the  press  that  was  paranoiac  about  anarchism  it  was 
assumed  to  be  certain  that  the  furious  revolutionists  among 
us  would  not  rest  until  they  had  wreaked  upon  the  city 
a  memorable  revenge  for  the  deaths  of  their  comrades. 
The  date  for  these  great  doings  was  finally  set  for  the 
anniversary  of  the  hanging,  which  fell  conveniently  upon 
a  Sunday.  Memorial  services  were  held  at  the  cemetery, 
and  many  sympathizers  attended  them,  to  the  shrieking 
terror  of  the  timid,  but  with  no  more  disorder  than  there 
is  at  a  church  prayer  meeting.  It  was  then  announced 
by  the  prophets  of  evil  that  the  plans  had  been  changed, 
and  the  date  had  been  fixed  irrevocably  for  the  Sunday 
two  weeks  thereafter. 

These  two  weeks  were  filled  with  stories  so  lurid  and 
circumstantial  of  the  terrible  deeds  at  hand  that  even  citi- 
zens that  so  far  had  retained  their  poise  began  to  be 
alarmed.  Anarchists  were  gathering  from  all  parts  of  the 
world;  strange,  sinister-looking  men  were  alighting  from 
all  the  incoming  trains;  arms  and  ammunition  were  being 
collected;  the  Lehr  und  Wehr  Verein,  screaming  for 
vengeance,  was  marching  to  and  fro  with  magazine  guns; 
united  anarchism  was  to  make  one  mighty  outbreak  and 
punish  Chicago  by  dynamiting  the  public  buildings  and 
slaughtering  the  principal  citizens.  Minute,  circumstantial 
accounts  of  all  these  matters  were  printed  daily.  Such  of 
the  newspapers  as  were  endowing  the  public  with  this  line 
of  news  even  knew  the  meeting  place  where  the  anarchist 
clans  were  to  gather  that  Sunday  afternoon  to  begin  the 
work  of  destruction.     They  knew  it  and  they  printed  it. 

107 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

Greif's  Hall  was  the  place.  No.  54  West  Lake  Street.  At 
two  o'clock  the  vast  hordes  were  to  assemble,  and  march 
thence  to  blow  things  up,  beginning  with  the  city  hall. 

On  the  fated  Sunday  afternoon  great  crowds  gathered 
at  the  indicated  scene  to  observe  the  coming  riot.  Police- 
men with  rifles  were  massed  in  the  adjacent  streets,  the 
reserves  were  under  arms  in  all  the  stations,  the  roofs  of 
the  near-by  houses  were  covered  with  interested  people. 
The  appointed  hour  came,  the  moments  wore  by,  the  sun 
declined,  the  shadows  grew,  a  bitter  wind  chilled  the  wait- 
ing throngs,  and  all  the  streets  remained  as  silent  as  a 
country  lane;  no  roar  of  explosion  was  heard,  no  tramp 
of  armed  men,  no  battling  hosts.  At  last  the  twilight 
came  on,  the  street  lamps  were  lighted,  the  policemen  re- 
turned to  the  stations,  the  crowds  dwindled  away,  the  show 
was  over. 

And  the  meeting  in  Greif's  Hall?  Oh,  that  was  held, 
truly  enough,  and  right  under  the  noses  of  the  police.  It 
was  a  meeting  of  the  German  Housewives'  Society  and  it 
gathered  to  knit  yarn  socks  and  discuss  the  infamous  price 
of  sausage;  which  placidly  and  contentedly  it  did  all  the 
afternoon. 

On  the  publication  of  these  facts  Chicago  laughed  aloud, 
and  at  the  first  sound  of  the  laughter  the  ghost  of  anarchy 
fled  the  city.  It  has  never  returned;  we  may  be  sure  it 
never  will  return.  That  it  should  have  lasted  so  long  and 
fooled  so  many  is  its  greatest  marvel,  for  truth  to  tell  it 
was  never  more  than  a  shadow's  shadow,  though  not  since 
Salem  witchcraft  has  there  been  a  delusion  with  such  dire 
results.  Governor  Altgeld  was  right  when  he  said  that 
we  were  in  no  danger  that  anarchism  would  ever  take  root 
in  our  soil.  It  remains  now  as  it  was  on  May  4,  1886,  the 
delusion  of  a  few  diseased  or  unbalanced  minds,  which,  if 

108 


The  Haymarket  and  Afterward 

they  had  not  this,  would  be  obsessed  of  some  other  form 
of  dangerous  dementia. 

In  the  trail  of  the  vanishing  specter  went  also  much  of 
the  bitter  feeling  it  had  aroused.  To  commemorate  the 
policemen  that  fell  before  Lingg's  bomb  a  monument  was 
placed  in  the  Haymarket.  For  some  space  of  time  it  stood 
there;  then  under  a  convenient  excuse  of  street  repairing 
or  the  need  of  more  room,  it  was  taken  away  to  be  erected 
again,  long  after,  in  a  wooded  park  miles  from  the  scene 
of  the  unhappy  event.  No  one  regretted  its  absence.  With 
no  lack  of  respect  for  the  brave  men  it  honored  I  think 
Chicago  felt  it  would  rather  not  have  a  monument  on  that 
spot  to  remind  it  of  one  of  the  most  painful  passages  in 
its  history. 

These  reminiscences  would  be  incomplete  if  I  failed  to 
add  the  sequel  of  the  story.  In  1893,  six  years  after  the 
hanging,  Governor  Altgeld  suddenly  startled  the  world  by 
issuing  pardons  for  Neebe,  Fielden,  and  Schwab,  then  rot- 
ting in  Joliet  penitentiary.  A  story  was  widely  circulated 
that  he  had  bargained  to  do  this  when  he  had  been  a  can- 
didate for  the  governorship  and  that  uffon  such  an  under- 
standing he  had  received  the  support  of  organized  labor. 
Years  after  these  things  had  been  forgotten  Governor 
Altgeld  told  me  in  many  long  talks  the  whole  story.  There 
was  no  bargain  nor  understanding.  Like  many  others,  like 
myself,  who  had  been  a  reporter  of  these  scenes.  Governor 
Altgeld  had  never  been  satisfied  of  the  justice  of  the  con- 
viction of  the  so-called  anarchists.  When  he  became  gov- 
ernor he  sent  for  the  entire  record  of  the  case.  It  was 
sent  down  to  him  at  Springfield  in  two  dry  goods  boxes. 
For  months  he  sat  every  night  in  his  study  deliberately 
considering  every  line  of  testimony  and  every  phase  of  the 
trial.     He  had  been  a  judge  on  the  bench;  he  had  a  sin- 

109 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

gularly  impartial  and  well-balanced  mind;  he  read  that 
testimony  in  the  attitude  of  a  juror.  As  he  read  he  became 
convinced  that  the  verdict  vras  unjustified  and  the  punish- 
ment inflicted  upon  these  men  was  wrong.  Holding  this 
belief  he  had  no  choice  but  to  try  to  do  what  still  might 
be  done  to  right  so  grievous  a  blunder.  Five  of  the  con- 
demned men  were  beyond  help,  but  three  were  serving 
terms  in  prison.  His  clear  duty  therefore  was  to  pardon 
these  three. 

He  knew  perfectly  well  that  to  do  so  would  be  to  close 
his  public  career.  He  knew  that  he  was  about  to  become 
the  target  for  the  hatred  and  the  furious  abuse  of  every 
reactionary  and  unthinking  mind  in  America.  He  accepted 
all  that  in  advance.  He  was  a  man  with  ambitions.  He 
laid  them  all  down  for  no  motive  but  to  be  honest  with 
himself  and  follow  where  his  conscience  indicated.  He 
issued  the  pardons,  and  reaped  for  his  reward  political, 
financial,  and  physical  ruin.  When  we  are  speaking  about 
the  heroes  of  conscience  we  might  think  sometimes  about 
the  career  of  John  P.  Altgeld. 


110 


VII 

WHY    HARRISON    WAS    NOMINATED    IN    1888 

The  annual  message  of  President  Cleveland  sent  to 
Congress  in  December,  1887^  traversed  all  precedents,  for 
it  omitted  all  the  subjects  that  custom  has  decreed  for  such 
a  document  and  in  about  1,500  words  declared  the  supreme 
necessity  of  reducing  the  tariff. 

With  the  explosion  of  this  political  bomb,  up  soared 
the  hearts  of  two  considerable  classes  in  the  country.  The 
protected  manufacturers  felt  that  on  the  issue  Mr.  Cleve- 
land had  raised  for  the  presidential  election  close  at  hand 
they  could  sweep  to  greater  power  than  they  had  ever 
known;  the  Republican  politicians  gave  thanks  that  their 
enemy  had  delivered  himself  into  their  hands  and  once 
more  they  could  expect  to  range  close  to  the  political  flesh 
pots. 

Twenty-four  hours  before  that  message  was  issued  few 
of  these  gentlemen  had  substantial  hope  of  beating  Cleve- 
land for  re-election;  twenty-four  hours  after  they  knew 
that  if  they  played  the  game  adroitly  they  could  not 
lose. 

The  only  trouble  was  to  agree  upon  the  Republican 
candidate.  Political  machinery  then  operated  upon  a  dif- 
ferent principle  from  ours.  In  these  days  we  have  but 
a  few  great  Interests  to  consult,  not  more  than  four;  in 
1888  hundreds  of  powerful  manufacturers  had  their  say 
about  affairs  and  dictated  to  scores  of  political  leaders 

111 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

that  they  maintained,  and  among  all  these  was  an  appar- 
ently hopeless  division. 

By  the  time  the  National  Convention  met  most  of  the 
engineers  that  sat  back  of  the  machine  and  threw  its  levers 
had  given  up  any  idea  of  a  quiet  and  orderly  adjustment 
among  themselves  and  were  constrained  to  let  the  thing 
drift.  A  worse  muddled  lot  I  have  never  seen.  Six  prom- 
inent candidates,  John  Sherman,  Senator  Allison  of  Iowa, 
Judge  Gresham,  General  Alger  of  Michigan,  General  Har- 
rison, and  Chauncey  Depew  had  each  about  the  same 
strength,  but  the  manufacturers  could  not  agree  as  to  which 
they  wanted,  and  the  leaders  could  not  determine  which 
they  could  make  the  best  terms  with.  This  is  not  the 
ordinary  way  of  describing  such  a  situation,  but  it  is  the 
literal  truth  and  every  other  old  political  reporter  will 
so  declare  it.  Anywhere  except  in  the  columns  of  his 
newspaper. 

How,  then,  did  the  delegates  function  in  this  affair? 
Not  at  all.  About  one  thousand  of  them  had  gathered, 
ostensibly  to  deliberate,  to  vote,  and  to  choose.  "  You  will 
see  a  grand  and  impressive  sight,"  said  an  enthusiastic 
patriot  when  I  was  on  my  way  to  my  first  National  Con- 
vention, "  representatives  of  the  nation  assembled  to  select 
the  nation's  ruler.*'  Yet,  when  we  came  to  consider  the 
actual  situation,  the  delegates  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
matter  and  might  as  well  have  stayed  at  home.  For  we, 
the  reporters,  seeking  to  divine  currents  and  results,  had 
never  anything  to  do  with  the  delegates;  the  question 
was  always  of  the  attitude  of  leaders  that  controlled  dele- 
gations and  cast  each  a  certain  number  of  votes  as  if  he 
held  them  in  his  hands. 

Each  of  these  leaders  (kindly  note  that  I  eschew  the 
unmelodious  name  of  boss)  must  look  out  for  his  own  wel- 

112 


Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888 

fare,  his  own  supremacy,  and  his  own  relations  to  the  par- 
ticular Interests  that  financed  and  backed  his  machine  in 
his  own  locality.  This  is  the  plain  fact,  whatever  else  you 
may  have  heard.  To  seem  to  be  moved  by  local  pride  in 
the  favorite  son  of  his  state  is  well  enough  for  purposes 
of  the  play,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  leader  can  have 
no  time  for  any  such  consideration.  The  masses  of  party 
followers  may  indulge  in  what  emotions  they  please ;  he  must 
deal  as  he  can  for  the  patronage  and  support  that  keep  his 
wheels  still  turning.  And  I  have  often  speculated  on  what 
the  rank  and  file  of  either  of  the  great  parties  would  say 
and  do  if  they  could  be  made  once  to  understand  the  view 
that  is  taken  of  them  by  their  adored  leaders,  or  the  real 
nature  of  the  things  for  which  great  crowds  cheer  so 
vociferously  in  the  streets,  or  who  really  triumphs  in  the 
battles  of  the  polls.  For,  if  my  service  as  a  political  re- 
porter taught  me  anything,  it  was  this  vast  and  irreconcilable 
difference  between  things  as  they  really  are  and  things  as 
they  are  prepared  for  representation  to  the  general  public. 
The  best  place  on  earth  from  which  to  observe  this  differ- 
ence is  a  national  political  convention,  and  at  none  of  them 
in  my  time  was  the  instruction  better  and  fresher  than  at 
the  convention  I  am  now  describing. 

While  the  great  men  and  leaders  were  thus  floundering 
about,  the  real  sentiment  of  the  party  at  large,  so  far  as 
it  had  any,  was  at  all  times  for  Blaine,  but  the  gentlemen 
that  steered  things  hesitated  about  this  mysterious  man. 
His  fellow  countrymen  had  not  seen  him  nor  heard  much 
of  him  for  many  months;  he  had  been  long  abroad,  and 
his  attitude  on  certain  important  matters,  not  in  any  way 
connected  with  national  policy,  was  uncertain.  He  had 
said  that  he  would  not  again  accept  the  nomination,  but 
unluckily  that  was  regarded  as  insufficient  evidence  and 

113 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

many  wise  and  experienced  observers  in  the  press  seats 
were  convinced  that  Blaine  would  be  nominated  and  would 
accept,  in  which  case  his  election  was  regarded  as  a  fore- 
gone conclusion. 

I  was  still  in  Chicago  as  the  Conventions  came  on.  The 
Democrats  met  perfunctorily  at  St.  Louis  and  the  only 
subject  there  of  the  slightest  human  interest  was  the  extent 
of  the  treachery  involved  in  Tammany  Hall's  support  of 
Cleveland — for  the  principal  feature  in  politics  is  that  no 
one  ever  says  what  he  means.  While  Tammany  was  in- 
dorsing the  President  at  St.  Louis  you  could  hear  the  grind- 
ing of  the  knives  that  were  prepared  for  his  bosom — such 
a  sound,  by  the  way,  as  has  been  plainly  audible  in  every 
National  Convention  I  have  ever  sat  in,  and  usually  from 
men  that  loudly  professed  loyalty. 

Ballard  Smith,  an  able  and  famous  commander  on  the 
news  field,  was  in  charge  of  the  World's  forces  at  both 
Conventions.  The  Republicans  met  about  three  weeks  after 
the  Democrats.  Mr.  Smith  came  to  Chicago  a  week  before 
the  Republican  Convention  assembled  and  we  drove  out 
Michigan  Avenue  boulevard  talking  over  the  situation.  I 
told  him  that  the  elder  sons  of  Mr.  Blaine,  Walker  and 
Emmons,  both  of  whom  lived  in  Chicago,  were  secretly 
working  against  their  father's  nomination.  He  was  much 
astonished  at  the  news  and  said  he  thought  I  must  have 
been  misinformed.  I  said  I  knew  both  of  the  Blaines  and 
had  observed  them  well  and  there  could  be  no  question 
about  the  fact.  In  an  unobtrusive  but  effective  way  they 
were  placing  ties  across  their  father's  track.  I  told  him 
some  places  where  I  knew  the  Blaines  had  gone  and  some 
things  they  had  said  to  the  chief  engineers  of  the  Repub- 
lican machines  that  afforded  to  my  mind  moral  proof, 
although  I  had  not  been  able  to  get  the  story  into  a  shape 

114 


Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888 

in  which  it  could  be  used.  Mr.  Smith  sat  for  a  while 
plainly  putting  things  together  in  his  mind.  Then  he 
said  : 

"  I  think  I  know  why.  How  well  do  you  know  the  Blaine 
boys?" 

I  said  I  knew  Walker  well,  but  Emmons  was  often  out 
of  the  city  and  my  acquaintance  with  him  was  slighter.  He 
said : 

"  Call  on  Walker  again  and  see  if  he  will  talk  frankly 
to  you  about  it.  Get  him  alone  and  at  his  ease.  If  the 
reason  is  what  I  think  it  is  he  will  not  tell  you  anyway. 
But  see  what  he  says.'* 

I  did  not  have  a  good  chance  to  talk  with  Walker  Blaine 
until  three  days  later,  which  was  the  Sunday  before  the 
Convention  met.  He  was  living  at  a  little  club,  the  name 
of  which  I  have  forgotten,  far  out  on  the  north  side.  I 
went  there  in  the  afternoon,  having  avoided  making  an 
appointment  because  it  was  not  necessary  to  give  him  time 
to  frame  answers  to  awkward  questions.  He  was  a  slender, 
tall,  young  man,  with  the  dark  olive  skin  and  dark  eyes 
of  the  Blaines,  but  bearing  otherwise  little  resemblance  to 
his  father,  of  whom  his  brother  Emmons  was  the  image. 
Walker  was  shy,  diffident,  cordial  within  these  limitations, 
and  always  seemed  to  be  trying  to  placate  somebody. 
We  talked  about  the  Convention  and  skated  around  and 
around  the  danger  point  of  his  father's  nomination.  When- 
ever we  came  up  to  it  he  was  invariably  ill  at  ease  and 
cut  away  again  as  quickly  as  possible.  Finally  I  told 
him  just  what  I  had  observed  and  what  I  said  could  not 
be  much  longer  concealed.  He  was  painfully  embarrassed. 
I  repeated  a  formula  much  in  use  by  reporters  that  I  had 
no  desire  to  crowd  him  but  in  such  cases  it  was  always 
best  to  say  what  he  had  in  mind,  and  that  I  would  use 

115 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

only  such  parts  of  it  as  he  would  be  willing,  on  reflection, 
to  have  published.     On  this  he  said: 

"  I  will  tell  you  this  much :  It  is  true  that  I  am  opposed 
to  my  father's  nomination.  The  entire  family  is  opposed 
to  it/' 

"\^Tiy?" 

He  was  more  than  ever  embarrassed.  "  I  will  tell  you 
one  reason,"  he  said  finally,  **  and  ask  you  to  regard  that 
as  enough.  We  are  opposed  to  father's  nomination  because 
we  do  not  believe  it  would  be  well  for  his  health." 

It  was  quite  true  that  Mr.  Blaine's  health  had  been 
reported  as  much  impaired  ever  since  the  unfortunate  cam- 
paign of  1884.  But  I  saw  clearly  enough  that  his  son 
had  not  given  the  true  reason  for  his  opposition  and  I  had 
somehow  a  curious  impression  that  he  was  under  the  dom- 
ination of  a  mind  and  will  stronger  than  his  own. 

The  Convention  came  on  with  the  leaders  no  nearer  to 
agreement.  Mr.  Blaine's  personal  representative  among 
the  delegates  was  Joe  Manley  of  Augusta,  a  big-headed, 
blond,  lame  man,  with  the  combination  not  usual  in  my 
observation  of  a  sanguine  temperament,  a  ruddy  face,  and 
an  extremely  reticent  tongue.  When  he  arrived  in  Chicago 
he  was  noncommittal.  After  some  conference  with  Walker 
Blaine  and  others  he  sought  to  discourage  the  talk  of  nom- 
inating his  chief;  but  he  would  not  say  why,  and  about 
him  from  first  to  last  was  a  certain  air  of  mystery  that 
puzzled  us  all. 

Mr.  Thomas  C.  Piatt  was  at  that  Convention,  having  in 
leash  the  entire  New  York  delegation.  With  this  asset 
and  his  own  reputation  for  power  and  prescience  he  was 
an  object  of  endless  curiosity  to  the  crowds  of  visitors 
and  of  equal  amusement  to  the  disillusioned  of  the  press 
seats.    A  furtive,  gray  little  man  with  a  little  head,  a  little 

116 


Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888 

manner,  and  a  little  slouching  gait,  he  looked  like  a  village 
storekeeper  that  had  come  to  town  to  buy  goods.  Some 
wonder  among  the  excursionists  was  occasioned  by  the  fact 
that  his  part  in  the  show  seemed  to  be  to  try  to  look  wise 
and  to  say  nothing,  but  to  the  seasoned  reporters  a  thing 
to  occasion  a  far  greater  surprise  would  have  been  a  note- 
worthy utterance  from  his  lips.  He  said  nothing  in  these 
days  for  the  excellent  reason  that  he  knew  nothing  in  the 
world  to  say,  being  as  badly  muddled  as  anybody  and 
merely  trying  to  scheme  to  pick  up  something  for  himself. 

At  the  New  York  State  Convention  he  had  ordered  that 
the  delegation  be  instructed  for  Depew,  but  he  had  no 
more  idea  of  nominating  Depew  than  he  had  of  nominating 
Blind  Tom.  He  chose  him  partly  because  he  would  make 
a  good  pawn  in  any  game  but  much  more  because  his  can- 
didacy tickled  the  Vanderbilts.  Depew  had  once  been  de- 
scribed by  one  of  that  family  as  its  political  butler,  a 
description  apt  and  true.  He  had  been  a  faithful  butler, 
was  now  president  of  the  New  York  Central  Railroad, 
and  the  family  he  had  served  so  long  and  humbly  was 
pleased  that  he  should  have  the  reward  of  an  honorable 
mention  at  the  National  Convention.  As  the  Republican 
manager  of  the  state  and  owner  of  the  legislature  Mr.  Piatt 
was  in  very  intimate  relations  with  the  Vanderbilt  Interests. 
The  New  York  Central  was  continually  in  need  of  legis- 
lative assistance,  usually  of  a  questionable  kind.  Mr.  Piatt 
could  provide  it.  In  return  he  had  much  and  invaluable 
help  in  building  and  maintaining  his  power  in  the  state, 
which  considering  the  man  and  his  methods  was  one  of  the 
most  amazing  and  unreasonable  powers  that  ever  existed 
under  free  institutions. 

For  many  years  Mr.  Piatt  selected  the  Republican  can- 
didates for  the  state  and  city  of  New  York,  had  his  un- 

117 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

questioned  will  about  platforms  and  policies^  ruled  in  his 
party  with  absolute  sway,  and  owed  all  this  supremacy  to 
his  dealings  with  corporations  on  one  hand  and  with  Tam- 
many Hall  on  the  other.  That  was  all.  He  had  no  more 
magnetism,  power  to  inspire,  tactical  wisdom,  or  marshalship 
than  the  alley  cat  to  which  he  was  often  likened.  His 
relations  with  Tammany  Hall  were  notorious  among  the 
political  reporters.  In  the  political  Punch  and  Judy  show 
Punch  Croker  was  always  beating  Judy  Piatt  with  a  stuffed 
club  to  the  inexpressible  delight  of  the  populace;  but  as 
soon  as  the  curtain  had  been  drawn  and  the  tribute  col- 
lected the  two  winked  and  shook  hands.  In  the  municipal 
election  of  1897  |lepublican  headquarters  sent  to  inquire 
of  Fourteenth  Street  how  many  votes  Tammany  might  need 
to  elect  Van  Wyck,  the  Tammany  candidate  for  Mayor, 
offering  to  supply  any  reasonable  number.  It  was  a  four- 
cornered  fight  and  hot.  Tammany,  in  the  person  of  a  leader 
renowned  and  wise,  sent  back  cordial  thanks  and  the  in- 
formation that  no  more  goods  would  be  required. 

As  an  actual  possibility  for  the  nomination  by  this  Con- 
vention Depew  was  only  of  a  humorous  suggestion.  Being 
president  of  the  New  York  Central  Railroad  the  bare  men- 
tion of  his  name  threw  the  unsubjugated  West  into  the 
borderland  of  hysteria.  Mr.  Piatt  never  knew  much  about 
the  West  beyond  Tioga,  New  York,  but  he  knew  something 
of  the  bitter  feeling  among  the  victims  of  the  predatory 
railroads,  and  he  never  had  the  least  intention  of  another 
use  of  Depew's  name  than  in  making  handy  terms.  But 
Mr.  Depew,  if  you  will  believe  me,  took  the  whole  thing 
seriously,  and  was  really  hurt  when  he  discovered  that  the 
West  did  not  relish  the  idea  of  nominating  him.  I  have 
never  yet  met  a  man  in  public  life  that  did  not  see  clearly 
that  he  was  the  ideal  man  for  the  Presidency  and  did  not 

118 


Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888 

believe  that  in  the  course  of  time  his  superiority  would  be 
discovered  by  his  admiring  fellow-citizens.  Alienists  ought 
to  pay  more  attention  to  this  phase  of  insanity^  for  it  is 
both  widespread  and  curious  and  affords  an  entirely  new 
view,  I  think_,  of  the  possibilities  of  the  human  mind  in 
self-deception. 

The  World  had  a  suite  in  the  excellent  old  Richelieu 
Hotel,  now  a  lost  landmark  in  Chicago,  and  the  next  suite 
was  Mr.  Depew's.  A  connecting  door  stood  open  most  of 
the  time.  Mr.  Depew  was  often  in  our  rooms  and  we  were 
often  in  his.  He  was  very  friendly  with  the  World  and 
on  confidential  terms  with  Ballard  Smith,  whom  he  esteemed 
highly.  In  this  way  the  operations  of  the  machine  that 
are  rarely  seen  were  performed  before  our  eyes.  But 
Mr.  Smith's  chief  professional  interest  was  in  a  very  differ- 
ent candidacy.  President  Cleveland  had  taken  an  expert's 
view  of  the  situation  and  was  convinced  that  his  opponent 
was  to  be  Senator  Allison.  Mr.  Smith  had  been  much  in 
Washington,  he  and  the  Clevelands  were  good  friends,  and 
the  President  had  told  him  that  Allison  would  certainly 
be  the  candidate.  He  was,  therefore,  curious  to  satisfy 
himself  about  Allison's  strength.  I  was  born  in  Iowa,  my 
father  and  Senator  Allison  were  old-time  friends,  the  Iowa 
delegates  and  Allison  leaders  were  all  well  known  to  me, 
and  the  Allison  boom  fell  naturally  into  my  division  of  the 
labor.  The  vote  of  New  York  when  it  should  abandon 
Depew  would  probably  be  decisive,  and  the  accident  of 
my  position,  being  close  to  New  York  on  one  side  and  to 
Iowa  on  the  other,  gave  me  a  natural  advantage  in  gather- 
ing the  news,  or  some  of  it. 

While  the  leaders  were  trying  to  settle  their  deals,  the 
Convention  was  delayed  as  long  as  might  be.  I  suppose 
that  some  allowance  should  be  made  for  the  exigencies  of 

119 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

the  case  and  the  size  of  the  stakes.  The  men  that  honestly- 
wished  to  have  the  party  win  felt  that  success  was  assured 
if  they  made  no  blunder.  But,  in  truth,  I  have  never  seen 
a  more  pitiable  exhibition  of  fumbling  indecision  and  back- 
ing and  filling.  I  think  it  a  safe  assertion  that  all  great 
men  look  wonderfully  small  at  close  range.  The  occasion 
was  one  for  decision  and  swift  action,  but  all  these  leaders 
hung  in  the  wind  for  days  trying  to  determine  whether 
they  should  let  the  Convention  work  the  party's  will, 
nominate  Blaine,  and  take  the  chances  about  the  pat- 
ronage, or  whether  they  should  agree  upon  some  other 
man. 

In  the  progress  of  the  time-killing  that  was  the  chief 
business  of  the  managers  I  was  a  witness  of  probably  the 
most  extraordinary  scene  of  the  kind  in  the  history  of 
National  Conventions.  The  reports  of  all  the  committees 
were  delayed  as  long  as  possible  while  the  great  men  of 
the  party  juggled  with  their  conceptions  of  relative  ad- 
vantage and  returns.  Waiting  for  the  platform  report  the 
Convention  adjourned  a  purposeless  and  flaccid  afternoon 
session  to  reassemble  in  the  evening.  In  the  evening  again 
the  report  was  not  forthcoming.  The  tedious  waiting  be- 
gan to  get  upon  the  nerves  of  people.  The  band  played 
vigorously  and  two  or  three  gentlemen  made  speeches  but 
none  of  them  seemed  to  fit  the  occasion  nor  to  please  the 
impatient  crowd. 

At  the  back  of  the  platform  in  an  inconspicuous  position 
sat  Colonel  Robert  G.  IngersoU,  his  chair  tilted  back,  his 
eyes  exploring  the  rafters,  his  mind  apparently  at  ease. 
Most  of  the  audience  did  not  know  he  was  in  that  part 
of  the  world.  Someone  on  the  platform  caught  sight  of 
him  and  started  a  cry  of  "  IngersoU !  *'  "  Ingersoll !  "  The 
crowd  in  front  joyously  took  it  up,  a  great  shout  swelled 

120 


Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888 

from  all  parts  of  the  building,  and  in  a  few  minutes  Colonel 
IngersoU  came  forward. 

For  years  he  had  taken  no  part  in  Republican  politics, 
and  had  not  been  much  in  sympathy  with  his  party,  but 
it  happened  that  in  the  present  contest  he  felt  a  vivid 
personal  interest.  He  greatly  admired  Judge  Gresham 
and  wished  to  see  him  nominated,  but  few  persons  knew 
the  fact  and  all  were  utterly  unprepared  for  what  followed. 
He  was  in  excellent  form  that  night.  I  have  heard  him 
speak  in  public  I  suppose  a  hundred  times  and  seldom  with 
more  force  and  purpose.  The  silvery  voice,  the  flawless  and 
unhesitating  utterance,  the  telling  phrase,  the  hot  eloquence, 
all  were  manifest.  The  crowd  hung  delightedly  on  his 
sentences  and  cheered  him  to  the  echo.  He  spoke  for  the 
party  as  the  friend  of  the  laboring  man  and  of  the  less 
fortunate.  Now  Judge  Gresham  was  the  workingmen's 
candidate  but  still  nobody  saw  the  drift  of  the  speech  until 
suddenly  at  the  close  of  a  burst  of  eloquence  Colonel  Inger- 
soU said: 

**  Feeling  so,  I  am  in  favor  of  the  nomination  of  Judge 
Walter  Q.  Gresham.'* 

The  Gresham  men  sprang  to  their  feet  with  a  scream 
of  triumph,  their  cheers  rolled  through  the  hall,  they  seized 
their  banners  and  marched  up  and  down,  roaring  with  de- 
light at  this  unexpected  indorsement.  There  were  many 
labor  men  in  the  galleries;  Chicago  was  rather  a  Gresham 
town;  and  the  din  was  great.  Suddenly  it  received  a  tre- 
mendous addition.  The  supporters  of  the  other  candidates, 
taken  by  surprise  at  first,  recovered  themselves  and  started, 
one  after  another,  counter  demonstrations.  Bedlam  broke 
loose,  the  uproar  seemed  to  strain  the  walls  and  tear  at 
the  roof.  There  were  eight  thousand  men  in  that  hall  and 
I  thought  each  had  his  mouth  open  yelling  with  all  his  might. 

121 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

All  the  banners  were  torn  from  their  places;  the  floor  wa^ 
one  mad  turmoil  of  marching  hosts.  Minute  after  minute 
passed  and  the  noise  grew.  In  the  din  you  could  at  times 
faintly  make  out  articulate  names^  "  Gresham !  "  "  Allison !  " 
**  Alger !  '*  **  Sherman !  "  but  for  the  most  part  there  was 
nothing  but  a  maddening  jumble  of  roars.  Colonel  Inger- 
soU  stood  in  his  place,  waiting  for  order  and  at  times  mo- 
tioning with  his  hands.  He  had  not  finished  his  speech. 
The  chairman  splintered  his  gavel  with  tremendous  blows 
upon  the  desk,  but  I,  who  sat  almost  under  him,  could  see 
him  strike  the  table  yet  hear  not  a  sound  he  made.  Eminent 
and  well-known  Republicans  stood  forth  and  shouted  for 
quiet.  The  crowd  never  heard  them  and  never  saw  them. 
Every  man  in  that  vast  place  was  bent  with  a  kind  of 
ferocity  on  out-yelling  his  neighbor.  Fifteen  minutes 
passed,  twenty,  twenty-five.  Colonel  IngersoU  had  given 
up  the  struggle  and  retired  to  his  chair.  The  uproar  had 
lasted  half  an  hour,  thirty-five  minutes,  and  was  growing 
always  worse.  Excited  men  struck  at  one  another  with 
their  banners;  a  bloody  riot  was  imminent.  Fights  had 
been  started  in  the  galleries.  The  situation  began  to  be 
alarming.  No  man  could  say  what  might  come  from  that 
seething  scene.  The  leaders  hurriedly  and  anxiously  con- 
sulted on  the  stage.  A  man  was  brought  from  some  place 
in  the  rear,  a  big  man,  with  a  big  head,  a  big  chest,  a  big 
mouth.  He  came  forward  along  the  stage.  He  stood  on 
the  front  of  it  and  looked  down  at  the  roaring  lunatics  and 
they  heeded  him  no  more  than  they  had  heeded  the  others. 
He  opened  his  mouth.  He  began  to  shout  and  they  heard 
no  more  of  him  than  they  had  heard  of  the  others.  It 
was  a  big  mouth  that  he  opened.  The  short-cropped  black 
beard  that  he  wore  made  it  look  still  bigger  and  redder. 
He  shouted  and  from  time  to  time  he  made  gestures.     It 

122 


Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888 

became  evident  that  he  was  reciting  something  but  no  man 
knew  what.  He  continued  to  shout.  He  would  shout  stead- 
ily for  a  time  and  pause  at  regular  intervals  as  if  what 
he  was  shouting  might  be  something  in  stanzas.  After  a 
time  some  men  in  the  audience  caught  sight  of  that  strange 
shouting  figure  and  that  big  mouth  and  being  transfixed 
with  wonder  forgot  to  yell.  Then  other  men  seeing  these 
staring  ones  looked  the  same  way  and  also  forgot  to  yell. 
Then  these  began  to  wish  they  knew  what  the  big  man 
was  trying  to  say  and  hissed  for  silence.  Slowly,  minute 
by  minute  the  whirlwind  began  to  subside.  Finally  there 
came  a  time  when  the  one  roaring  voice  on  the  stage  could 
grapple  with  the  thousand  roaring  voices  in  the  audience; 
then  a  time  when  it  began  to  prevail  upon  them  and  subdue 
them.  And  at  last  people  could  make  out  what  the  roaring 
voice  was  roaring  and  they  broke  into  a  quick  sharp  ripple 
of  applause,  and  then  all  was  still  save  for  the  one  roaring 
voice  on  the  stage,  that  filled  and  thundered  and  rever- 
berated through  every  corner  of  the  great  hall,  moving 
every  soul  there. 

And  this  is  what  it  was  roaring:  Buchanan  Read's  poem, 
**  Sheridan's  Ride."  And  silence  came  just  as  the  big  man 
reached  the  last  stanza. 

At  that  moment  General  Philip  Henry  Sheridan  lay 
dying  in  Fortress  Monroe  and  all  men  in  the  Convention 
knew  of  his  last  and  losing  fight. 

And  when  the  last  line  was  uttered  the  Convention  ad- 
journed and  went  out  quietly  and  solemnly,  for  there  was 
calm  after  that  terrific  storm. 

The  man  with  the  big  voice  was  Colonel  John  R.  Pope 
of  St.  Louis.  So  far  as  I  know  his  performance  that 
night  was  his  one  clutch  at  national  fame,  but  in  those 
few   minutes  he  earned  the  heartfelt  gratitude   of   more 

123 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

persons  than  the  members  of  the  Republican  National 
Committee. 

The  nominating  speeches  were  made,  the  balloting  be- 
gan,  and  as  had  been  clearly  foreseen  no  candidate  gave 
any  promise  of  developing  additional  strength.  The  Con- 
vention was  hung  upon  a  dead-lock.  And  still  the  leaders 
could  find  no  course  to  steer.  A  curious  reflection  pertains 
to  this  situation.  In  the  Conventions  of  1884,  1880,  1876, 
and  previous  years  the  candidacies  of  men  were  a  matter 
of  popularity  and  strength  with  the  voters.  In  the  Con- 
vention of  1888  (and  sometimes  thereafter)  candidacies 
were  a  matter  of  arrangement,  treaty,  and  negotiation 
among  the  leaders  and  beyond  them  of  backing  by  the 
Interests.  I  have  never  seen  any  reference  to  this  sig- 
nificant fact;  yet  every  reporter  that  has  followed  politics 
carefully  must  know  all  about  it,  a  curious  illustration  of 
the  difference  between  things  as  they  are  and  things  as 
they  are  supposed  to  be. 

In  the  midst  of  the  vacillation  and  confusion  the  New 
England  delegations  resorted  to  a  process  analogous  to 
throwing  dice.  They  decided  to  allot  their  votes  among 
the  different  candidates,  trusting  to  luck  and  without  regard 
to  deals  or  any  other  consideration.  The  only  clear  idea 
they  had  was  that  the  candidate  should  be  a  Western  man. 
Luckily  there  was  no  lack  of  Western  men.  So  Rhode 
Island  was  allotted  to  vote  for  Allison,  Vermont  for  Har- 
rison, New  Hampshire  for  Alger,  if  I  remember  correctly, 
and  so  on.  The  chairman  of  the  Vermont  delegation  was 
Redfield  Proctor,  a  marble  manufacturer  of  Burlington. 
When  Vermont  was  reached  on  the  roll  call  General  Proctor 
would  arise  deliberately  and  pause  until  perfect  silence  was 
secured  and  then  shout  in  a  particularly  piercing  voice  and 
slowly : 


Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888 

Vermont    casts    eight    votes — for    Benjamin    Harri- 


son 


The  audience  fell  to  waiting  for  this  vocal  achievement 
and  laughing  at  it  and  cheering  it  when  it  came  and  in 
due  time  it  made  General  Proctor  Secretary  of  War. 

William  McKinley  was  chairman  of  the  Ohio  delegation, 
which  was  instructed  for  John  Sherman.  After  several 
fruitless  ballots  a  vote  was  cast  for  McKinley.  On  the 
next  ballot  there  were  several  more  and  every  mention  of 
his  name  started  a  volley  of  applause.  Some  ordinarily 
shrewd  persons  thought  they  foresaw  a  stampede.  There 
was,  in  point  of  fact,  no  danger  that  McKinley  would  be 
nominated;  the  various  leaders  had  their  respective  delega- 
tions too  well  trained  and  too  well  in  hand  for  any  stam- 
pede; but  the  moment  was  intensely  interesting  and  to  the 
uninitiated  seemed  likely  to  make  history,  or  so  men  deemed 
that  were  watching  it;  for  in  exactly  this  way  General 
Garfield  had  been  named  in  1880.  And  then  Major  McKin- 
ley, at  the  head  of  the  Ohio  delegation,  sprang  upon  a 
chair  and  in  ringing  voice  absolutely  and  unequivocally 
refused  to  allow  his  name  to  be  considered  by  the  Con- 
vention. He  said  that  he  had  been  sent  there  by  his  state 
to  further  the  candidacy  of  John  Sherman,  and  that  he 
would  be  a  traitor  to  the  duty  intrusted  to  him  if  he 
allowed  a  vote  to  be  cast  for  himself.  It  was  a  short,  clear, 
manly  speech,  delivered  with  feeling  and  sincerity  and  it 
not  only  reflected  credit  upon  Major  McKinley  but  helped 
his  fortunes.  Men  did  not  forget  it.  They  recalled  that 
in  1880  General  Garfield,  in  exactly  the  same  position, 
had  sat  in  his  place  and  kept  silence  while  his  vote  swelled 
until  he  was  nominated,  and  the  difference  made  a  good 
impression. 

Yet  there  was  no  agreement  among  the  warring  leaders, 

n5 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

and  no  prospect  of  compromise.  Mr.  Depew  arose  in  the 
Convention  at  the  time  appointed  by  Mr.  Piatt  and  said 
he  had  discovered  that  his  candidacy  would  raise  certain 
extraneous  issues  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  party,  and 
therefore,  in  the  interest  of  harmony  he  would  with- 
draw his  name.  Mild  applause  greeted  this  expected  an- 
nouncement, which  was  generally  believed  to  herald  the 
fact  that  a  steering  course  had  been  chosen.  To  the  sur- 
prise of  all  not  on  the  inside  of  things  there  was  no  dis- 
cernible change  in  the  situation.  For  once  in  his  life.  Fate 
and  Chance  had  put  Mr.  Piatt  into  a  commanding  place. 
Whichever  way  he  should  throw  the  New  York  delegation 
would  be  decisive.  He  alone  had  the  making  of  the  next 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  all  the  theories  of 
popular  rule  and  democratic  control  looked  rather  ill  in  the 
presence  of  that  fact.  One  could  hardly  select  a  less 
promising  figure  to  be  the  sole  arbitrator  of  a  nation's 
destiny.  A  small  and  selfish  politician  selecting  the  chief 
magistrate  of  seventy  million  people  on  the  sole  basis  of 
what  he  could  get  for  himself  would  hardly  seem  cal- 
culated to  arouse  sincere  enthusiasm  among  patriots.  Hour 
upon  hour  the  Convention  and  the  country  waited  under 
the  belief  they  were  waiting  upon  the  deliberations  of 
great  men  and  wise,  when  in  reality  they  were  wait- 
ing upon  Mr.  Piatt's  changing  views  of  his  own  advan- 
tage. 

It  was  Friday  afternoon  when  Mr.  Depew  withdrew. 
The  Convention  was  to  meet  again  at  two  o'clock  Saturday 
afternoon.  The  Iowa  men  were  very  active  and  very  hope- 
ful. New  York  thought  well  of  Allison.  Mr.  Piatt  gave 
them  every  encouragement.  The  nomination  seemed  cer- 
tion.  Mr.  Depew's  well-timed  withdrawal  gave  him  promi- 
nence and  power.     Men  felt  that  he  had  been  manly  and 

126 


Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888 

fair  and  he  ought  to  be  consulted.  The  suite  in  the  Riche- 
lieu had  many  visitors  that  night  and  the  next  morning  it 
was  occupied  by  the  last  conference. 

At  half-past  one  Saturday  afternoon  Depew  opened  the 
door  to  our  apartments  and  said: 

**  Well,  boys,  it's  done.  Blaine  at  two  o'clock,  Alger  at 
four  o'clock,  adjourn  at  five  o'clock.  We  can  start  for 
home  to-night." 

He  looked  tired  but  relieved.  Mr.  Piatt  had  selected 
his  move,  the  leaders  had  made  up  their  minds  at  last,  the 
conference  had  decided.  With  Mr.  Depew  we  moved 
along  to  the  Convention  Hall  to  see  the  programme  carried 
out.  In  another  half -hour  the  thing  would  have  been  done. 
And  between  the  adjournment  of  the  conference  and  the 
meeting  of  the  Convention  Joe  Manley  got  that  famous 
cable  message  from  Mr.  Blaine  refusing  to  be  a  candidate. 
By  so  close  a  margin  did  James  G.  Blaine  miss  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  United  States. 

The  Convention  met.  The  news  of  the  cable  message 
had  gone  about  among  the  leaders.  They  were  once  more 
adrift  and  the  Convention  adjourned  (or  was  adjourned, 
for  it  had  no  volition  in  the  matter)  until  Monday. 

That  night  and  all  day  Sunday  there  was  hot  work  in 
Chicago.  In  a  room  in  the  Grand  Pacific  a  knot  of  the 
leaders  battled  most  of  the  day  and  all  of  Sunday  night. 
For  five  hours  I  stood  off  and  on  waiting  for  Charles  Emory 
Smith  to  come  out  and  give  me  the  piece  of  news  that  I 
wanted.  The  newspaper  men  had  no  sleep  nor  rest.  At 
any  moment  the  Piatt  cat  might  jump  and  as  Mr.  Piatt 
was  still  bargaining  and  calculating  others  might  try  in 
vain  to  forecast  the  direction  the  jump  would  take.  The 
Iowa  men  were  most  jubilant.  They  were  firmly  convinced 
that  Mr.  Piatt  would  decide  for  Allison.     They  had  been 

127 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

long  in  conference  with  the  New  Yorkers.  The  thing  was 
as  good  as  settled.     Allison  was  the  man. 

At  four  o'clock  on  Sunday  afternoon  I  was  writing  in 
the  World  headquarters  when  one  of  Senator  Allison's 
managers  came  to  the  door  and  made  a  signal.  I  went  into 
the  hall. 

"What's  the  matter  with  Piatt?"  said  he. 

"  Nothing/'  said  I,  "  so  far  as  I  know.     Why?  " 

"  He's  thrown  us  down  flat/'  said  he.  **  We  had  the 
thing  cinched  this  morning  and  now  he's  gone  back  on  us. 
And  I  want  to  know  why." 

I  took  a  turn  into  the  next  room  and  found  that  the 
Iowa  man  was  right.  The  kaleidoscope  had  turned  again 
and  Allison  was  out  of  it.  I  told  my  friend  I  had  no  good 
news  for  him  and  he  went  away  swearing.  When  the  word 
got  out  the  whole  Allison  contingent  was  furious.  They 
might  as  well  have  raged  against  the  moon  as  against  Piatt. 

Hour  after  hour  the  conferring  went  on.  At  four  o'clock 
Monday  morning  the  end  was  reached.  Mr.  Piatt  decided 
in  favor  of  Harrison,  the  rest  of  the  leaders  ratified  his 
choice,  and  the  worn-out  watchers  went  to  sleep. 

Not  at  once  did  we  learn  exactly  what  had  turned  Piatt 
from  Allison  to  Harrison.  The  observing  person  on  his 
way  through  life  gives  over  early  the  idea  of  accounting 
for  human  ambitions  or  the  achievements  of  self-deception. 
Mr.  Piatt's  secret  ambition  was  to  be  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury and  that  was  the  thing  that  had  been  boggling  the 
Convention  for  the  last  three  days.  He  was  determined  to 
get  this  price  for  the  vote  of  New  York  and  to  take  nothing 
else.  No  other  public  man  in  the  country  would  have  been 
so  incongruous  a  figure  in  such  a  position.  Mr.  Piatt  knew 
little  of  finance  and  nothing  at  all  of  economics.  He  was 
without  the  rudiments  of  information  on  national  affairs^ 

128 


Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888 

his  brief  public  service  had  been  a  sorry  jest  on  the  people 
he  was  supposed  to  represent;  he  could  hardly  express 
himself  in  the  language  of  educated  men;  he  had  no 
more  outlook  than  any  other  villager.  Yet  his  little  mind 
was  fixed  upon  the  Treasury  portfolio^  he  would  sell  the 
Presidency  to  anyone  that  would  give  it  to  him.  All 
Sunday  morning  he  had  been  in  telegraphic  communica- 
tion with  Senator  Allison  trying  to  arrange  the  bargain. 
Senator  Allison  resolutely  refused  to  accept  the  terms  and 
by  so  narrow  a  margin  did  he,  too,  miss  the  Presidency  of 
the  United  States. 

•  Mr.  Piatt  then  turned  to  General  Harrison  and  made 
similar  inquiries.  The  negotiations  were  conducted  through 
General  John  C.  New,  who  was  the  Harrison  leader  in 
the  Convention.  We  have  been  told  that  Piatt  regarded 
General  Harrison's  answers,  delivered  through  General 
New,  as  satisfactory  and  believed  that  a  distinct  treaty  had 
been  made  by  which  he  was  to  have  what  he  wanted  if 
General  Harrison  should  win.  What  General  Harrison 
believed  we  shall  never  know.  Possibly  General  New  did 
not  understand  the  language  in  common  u^e  at  No.  49 
Broadway;  possibly  he  imperfectly  conveyed  its  meaning 
to  General  Harrison.  The  temptation,  if  there  was  one, 
must  have  been  great.  Mr.  Piatt  afterward  believed  that 
someone  had  yielded  to  it,  had  made  a  bargain  for  a  great 
prize,  and  then  repudiated  the  terms.  When  General  Har- 
rison became  President  he  declined  to  make  Mr.  Piatt  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  Mr.  Piatt  spent  the  next 
four  years  in  thinking  that  he  was  plotting  to  accomplish 
General  Harrison's  downfall. 

The  Convention  met  and  promptly  did  what  was  required 
of  it.  One  picture  of  that  morning  I  remember  well.  The 
nomination  of  General  Harrison  had  just  been  made  unani- 

129 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

movLs,  I  was  hastening  out  the  platform  entrance  of  the  hall, 
and  in  one  of  the  temporary  wooden  corridors  I  came  sud- 
denly upon  Walker  Blaine,  alone.  He  was  stamping  and 
reeling  along  like  a  man  in  uncontrollable  emotion,  his 
clenched  hands  raised  high  above  his  head  while  he  cried: 
"Thank  God!    Thank  God!    Oh,  thank  God !  " 

The  next  day  Mr.  Smith  and  I  were  again  driving  down 
the  boulevard  and  I  asked  him  what  in  his  judgment 
was  the  explanation  of  the  strange  behavior  of  the  Blaine 
family  and  the  final  rejection  by  Mr.  Blaine  of  the  nomi- 
nation he  had  sought  from  three  preceding  Conventions. 
He  said: 

**  Mrs.  Blaine.  But  you  can  never  get  that  story  into  a 
shape  in  which  you  can  verify  it." 

In  this  he  was  quite  correct.  The  truth,  I  believe,  was 
the  slanderous  and  personal  nature  of  the  campaign  of 
1884  had  impressed  Mrs.  Blaine  with  a  hysterical  loathing 
of  such  things.  There  never  had  been  such  a  campaign  in 
the  United  States;  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  will  never 
be  another.  One  finds  it  hard  now  to  realize  that  in  1884 
an  issue  of  a  presidential  campaign  was  the  date  of  the 
birth  of  Mr.  Blaine's  eldest  son,  and  that  other  matters 
were  debated  still  more  personal  and  repulsive.  Some  of 
these  intrusions  into  private  life  filled  Mrs.  Blaine  with  in- 
expressible horror.  She  was  a  proud  and  pungent  lady, 
and  accustomed  to  having  her  way  in  her  household.  Believ- 
ing that  if  her  husband  should  be  nominated  again  there 
would  be  a  repetition  of  the  horrors  of  1884,  she  was  deter- 
mined to  prevent  any  such  ordeal,  and  as  I  fancy  she  and 
the  rest  of  the  family  had  small  faith  in  the  power  of  her 
husband  to  resist  the  temptation  of  a  nomination  she  had 
inspired  her  sons  to  labor  without  ceasing  to  prevent  such 
an  event.     I  am  interested  to  recall  now  that  in  the  next 

ISO 


Why  Harrison  Was  Nominated  in  1888 

four  years  she  quite  reversed  her  opinion  on  this  subject, 
and  in  1892  she  desired  her  husband's  nomination  as  ear- 
nestly as  she  had  opposed  it  in  1888. 

Mr.  Blaine  had  an  overmastering  ambition  to  be  Presi- 
dent. His  name  vras  before  five  National  Conventions  of 
his  party.  When  he  secured  the  nomination  he  was  de- 
feated at  the  polls.  When  he  would  surely  have  been 
elected  at  the  polls  he  declined  the  nomination.  I  can  think 
of  no  apter  comment  on  the  shuttle-cock  nature  of  human 
life  than  the  career  of  James  G.  Blaine. 


181 


VIII 

WHERE   WAS   THE   DANMARK? 

As  with  travel,  so  with  reporting,  the  charm  lies  in  the 
changing  perspective  that  constantly  challenges  the  atten- 
tion with  a  new  object.  Otherwise  it  is  to  be  admitted  that 
even  when  easiest  the  reporter's  way  of  life  leads  through 
enough  of  hardship  and  vicissitude,  sometimes  walked  with 
risk  and  sometimes  leading  to  scenes  of  a  nature  to  make 
him  loathe  his  calling  and  forget  its  duties. 

One  night  I  sat,  disguised  as  a  coal-heaver  from  a  canal 
boat,  in  what  I  believe  to  have  been  the  worst  resort  in 
New  York  City.  It  was  a  miserable  boozing  ken  far  over 
in  the  Fifties,  near  the  North  River,  in  the  heart  of  a 
region  so  given  over  to  savagery  and  abandoned  by  the 
forces  of  law  and  government  that  a  parallel  for  it  can 
hardly  be  found  in  a  civilized  city.  This  particular  dive 
was  frequented  by  young  gangsters  of  the  type  that  had 
so  appalled  me  when  first  I  came  to  New  York;  their  un- 
restrained conversation  was  about  crimes  they  had  com- 
mitted or  were  about  to  commit;  four  of  them  playing  pool 
had  the  day  before  been  guilty  of  a  peculiarly  atrocious 
assault  made  in  a  daylight  raid  upon  a  tenement  house. 
One  of  the  gentlemen  with  whom  I  was  engaged  in  a  game 
of  euchre  I  arrested  the  next  day  as  a  witness  of  a  murder 
in  which  he  was  also  in  all  probability  an  accessory.  Three 
nights  later  I  was  in  the  home  of  a  high  army  officer  dis- 
covered in  an  act  of  dishonesty,  and  the  gray-haired  wife 

132 


Where  Was  the  Danmark? 

and  mother  fell  on  her  knees  before  me,  raining  tears  upon 
the  hand  that  struggled  in  vain  to  raise  her  as  she  pleaded 
for  a  protection  against  publicity  I  was  utterly  unable  to 
give.  Of  the  two  situations  I  preferred  that  provided  by 
the  euchre  game  in  the  dive. 

These  reflections  move  me  to  cite  at  this  point  an  in- 
cident that  illustrates  the  uncertainties  of  reporting,  which 
is  not  a  very  important  matter,  and  at  the  same  time  shows 
a  certain  atavistic  trait  in  human  nature  seldom  remarked 
and  still  worth,  possibly,  a  moment's  study. 

The  steamer  Danmark  of  the  Thingvalla  Line  sailed  from 
Christiansand  March  15,  and  Stettin  March  16,  1889,  with 
seven  hundred  and  twenty  passengers,  bound  for  New  York. 

She  was  due  to  arrive  on  March  SO,  and  being  usually 
as  regular  as  a  ferry  boat  some  comment  was  aroused  in 
shipping  circles  when  she  became  overdue.  The  North 
Atlantic  was  in  its  usual  springtime  humor  of  fury  and 
tempest,  and  the  hope  was  that  she  had  been  merely  de- 
layed by  bad  weather;  but  even  so  men  marveled  that  she 
had  not  been  reported  by  any  other  vessel.  When  a  week 
had  passed  without  word  of  her  the  ship  news  men  saw 
that  something  worse  than  foul  weather  had  befallen  her 
and  their  judgment  was  strengthened  when,  on  April  9,  the 
City  of  Chester  arrived  at  Liverpool  and  reported  that  in 
mid-ocean  she  had  sighted  one  of  the  Danmark's  life  boats 
adrift  and  empty.  To  the  maritime  mind  here  was  the 
sign  of  a  disaster. 

What,  then,  had  become  of  the  seven  hundred  and  twenty 
passengers?  That  was  the  harrowing  question.  The  City 
of  Chester  had  left  New  York  on  March  30.  If  the  Dan- 
mark had  been  abandoned  and  her  people  had  been  rescued 
by  another  steamer  by  this  time  they  should  have  been  in 
port  on  one  side  of  the  ocean  or  the  other.    When  had  they 

133 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

taken  to  tKe  boats  and  were  they  now  drifting  about  the 
Atlantic?     Or  had  all  been  lost? 

Any  incoming  deep  sea  vessel,  steam  or  sail,  might  bring 
news  of  them.  Therefore  the  morning  newspapers  sent 
reporters  nightly  to  Quarantine  Station  (which  is  on  the 
Staten  Island  shore  of  the  Narrows  between  the  Upper 
and  Lower  Bays)  to  question  every  ship  that  should  arrive. 
It  was  the  vantage  point  for  this  work  because  no  vessel 
from  abroad  could  pass  Quarantine  until  it  had  been  cleared 
by  the  Health  Officer  of  the  port.  I  was  sent  on  this 
errand  by  the  Herald,  which,  as  the  great  shipping  news 
authority,  had  a  peculiar  interest  in  the  story. 

Every  night  we  lay  under  the  shore  in  a  fisherman's 
hut,  watching  for  the  lights  of  incoming  vessels.  When 
one  appeared  the  gang  of  us  put  out  in  a  row-boat  we 
had  chartered  and  overhauled  our  prey,  usually  as  she 
was  coming  to  anchor.  Customs  regulations  forbade  us 
to  go  aboard  and  the  only  way  we  could  make  our  inquiries 
was  to  stand  in  the  row-boat  and  shout  at  the  steamer's 
bridge  above  us.  Captains  are  not  partial  to  these  inter- 
ruptions when  of  a  dark  night  they  are  coming  to  anchor 
in  a  narrow  and  crowded  roadstead,  and  on  two  occasions 
the  work  was  prosecuted  in  a  chilly  drizzle;  but  for  four 
successive  nights  we  conscientiously  recorded  the  fact  that 
no  incoming  vessel,  steam  or  sail,  had  news  of  the  Danmark. 
New  York  is  a  busy  port.  We  had  seldom  long  to  wait 
between  our  excursions. 

About  this  time  some  seasoned  reflection  and  some  con- 
versation with  my  sea-faring  friends  caused  me  to  believe 
that  no  New  York  newspaper  had  awakened  to  the  real 
merits  of  the  story.  A  reporter  is  none  the  worse  if  he 
has  a  specialty  that  he  studies  for  diversion  or  profit.  Mine 
was  an  old-time  fancy  for  the  sea  and  maritime  a£fairs, 

134 


Where  Was  the  Danmark? 

a  survival,  I  suppose,  of  boyhood's  happy  and  often  stolen 
hours  with  Cooper,  Dana,  and  Captain  Marryat.  The 
Herald's  city  editor  at  that  time  was  Dr.  Edward  Cohen, 
a  very  able  man  but  no  navigator.  After  the  fourth  night 
of  the  Quarantine  watch,  which  happened  to  be  a  Friday, 
instead  of  going  home  I  went  to  the  ofl&ce  and  put  before 
Dr.  Cohen  an  analysis  of  the  situation  like  this: 

Seven  hundred  and  twenty  passengers  sailed  on  the 
Danmark ;  men  and  officers  bring  the  total  of  persons  aboard 
of  her  when  she  left  Stettin  to  about  eleven  hundred.  If 
they  are  lost,  here  is  the  greatest  disaster  in  the  records 
of  the  North  Atlantic. 

The  steamer  herself  is  done  for.  She  may  have  burned, 
foundered,  been  sunk  by  ice,  or  sunk  in  a  collision;  no 
one  can  say.  But  the  finding  of  one  of  her  boats  by  the 
City  of  Chester  and  the  fact  that  she  has  not  been  sighted 
shows  that  she  has  been  abandoned  and  is  destroyed. 

Her  people,  or  some  of  them,  took  to  the  boats.  That 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  although  the  boat  picked  up  by 
the  Chester  was  full  of  water,  oars  were  still  in  it.  There- 
fore, that  boat  had  been  lowered  and  used. 

What  has  become  of  the  people?  They  have  not  been 
rescued  by  any  passenger  steamer  or  they  would  have 
reached  port  long  ago,  American  or  European. 

Then  if  they  have  been  rescued  at  all  they  have  been 
taken  aboard  either  a  very  slow  freight  steamer,  or  a  sailing 
ship,  or  the  rescuing  vessel  itself  has  met  with  another 
mishap. 

If  they  are  on  a  sailing  vessel  they  will  inevitably  starve 
or  die  of  thirst.  A  sailing  vessel  might  possibly  have  food 
in  her  cargo,  but  her  water  casks  would  last  but  an  hour 
or  two  before  such  an  invasion,  after  which  she  could  come 
by  not  a  drop  of  water  to  drink. 

135 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

If  these  people  are  on  a  freight  steamer  it  must  be  one 
of  the  smallest  and  slowest  and  as  ill-able  to  feed  eleven 
hundred  persons  as  a  sailing  vessel  would  be.  Among  the 
slowest  freighters  are  the  oil-tanks.  Possibly  these  eleven 
hundred  are  on  an  oil-tank.  In  that  case^  since  a  tank 
is  provisioned  for  only  a  small  crew,  carries  no  general 
cargo,  and  only  small  condensers,  the  situation  of  these 
people  is  as  bad  as  it  would  be  on  a  sailing  vessel. 

But  if  they  have  been  picked  up  by  a  steamer,  how  does 
it  happen  that  the  steamer,  however  slow,  has  not  been 
reported  by  any  vessel  arriving  on  either  side?  The  cap- 
tain, whether  of  tramp  or  oil-tank,  knows  the  steamer 
routes  like  the  inside  of  his  hand.  He  would  assuredly  get 
into  them  and  keep  along  them,  looking  for  help.  Yet  we 
have  had  no  word.  A  sailing  vessel,  to  be  sure,  might  be 
driven  far  from  the  steamer  lanes  and  never  be  seen  until 
she  raised  the  Highlands.  But  if  they  are  on  a  sailing 
vessel  hardly  a  chance  remains  that  they  are  alive. 

What  is  it  then.'*  Are  they  still  on  the  boats  and  drift- 
ing about  the  middle  of  the  Atlantic?  In  that  case  they 
are  dead  or  dying  of  hunger,  cold,  and  exposure.  Have 
they  been  rescued  by  another  steamer  that  has  since  met 
with  disaster?  In  that  case  we  have  two  wrecks  instead 
of  one  and  the  greatest  story  that  ever  was  told  of  the  sea. 

The  city  editor  was  very  much  taken  with  this  view  of  the 
case  and  told  me  to  write  for  Monday's  issue  a  full  story 
of  four  or  five  columns,  presenting  these  points  and  illus- 
trating them,  as  I  had  suggested,  with  instances  from  the 
annals  of  the  transatlantic  trade,  strewn  with  wrecks  enough, 
as  everybody  knows.  Monday  morning  was  selected  for 
this  publication  for  the  reason  that  Sunday  was  always  the 
dullest  day  in  the  week  and  the  wise  city  editor  was  alert 
for  available  Monday  morning  material. 

136 


Where  Was  the  Danmark? 

I  returned  to  the  Quarantine  watch  and  that  night  being 
Saturday  was  the  busiest  of  all  our  vigil.  In  those  days 
most  of  the  transatlantic  steamers  were  of  two  varieties, 
the  new,  fast  boats  that  crossed  in  about  seven  days  and 
the  older  and  slower  boats  that  crossed  in  about  ten.  The 
seven-day  boats  sailed  on  Saturday  and  the  ten-day  boats 
on  Wednesday,  which  usually  brought  them  to  Quarantine 
in  a  bunch  between  Saturday  noon  and  Sunday  morning. 

Most  of  the  big  fellows  were  in  and  had  been  conscien- 
tiously hailed  from  our  row-boat  when  one  o'clock  came 
and  the  reporters  for  the  other  papers  withdrew.  The 
Herald,  being  the  great  journal  of  the  shipping  interests, 
and  having  an  eye  to  the  chances  of  a  Sunday  extra,  if 
the  news  were  startling,  commissioned  me  to  stay  until  the 
last  of  the  fleet  had  arrived.  At  intervals  of  an  hour  or 
so  the  lights  kept  swinging  into  view  down  the  fairway 
and  as  fast  as  one  was  discovered  I  voyaged  out,  with  only 
the  old  boatman  for  company.  Last  of  all  came  the 
Cunarder  Etruria,  then  holder  of  the  speed  record  of  the 
North  Atlantic.  The  sun  was  rising  as  her  big  hull  showed 
above  Hoffman  Island. 

At  that  time  Cunard  steamers  were  not  compelled  to 
anchor  at  Quarantine;  they  must  stop  there  until  they 
should  be  cleared,  but  if  a  Cunard  captain  chose  he  could 
lie  in  the  stream  and  await  the  doctor's  boat,  which,  old 
observers  noted,  went  always  to  a  Cunarder  first.  The 
reasons  for  these  attentions  'were  not  publicly  discussed, 
but  they  must  have  been  powerful.  On  the  present  occasion, 
day  having  broken  and  the  captain  doubtless  in  haste  to 
get  to  his  pier,  the  Etruria  did  not  anchor,  but  stopped  her 
engines  off  Clifton,  the  next  point  above  Quarantine  station, 
and  waited  for  the  doctor. 

A  strong  spring  tide  was  running  out  and  she  began  to 

137 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

drift  astern.  When  she  had  floated  down  as  far  as  Fort 
Wadsworth  she  flapped  her  propeller  and  went  up  to  her 
former  station.  My  row-boat  was  heavy^  progress  against 
the  tide  was  slow_,  but  we  made  the  Etruria's  quarter  all 
rights  and  thence  worked  forward  until  we  were  under  the 
bridge.  I  was  on  my  feet,  with  my  hands  to  my  mouth, 
about  to  hail  the  captain,  when  the  pilot,  perceiving  that  the 
steamer  had  drifted  too  far  down,  rang  ahead  and  before 
she  stopped  she  was  a  mile  from  where  we  lay. 

The  old  boatman  lumbered  along  in  pursuit.  He  had 
been  rowing  all  night  and,  with  a  lack  of  consideration 
for  which  I  am  now  ashamed,  it  never  occurred  to  me  he 
might  be  weary.  As  we  fought  our  way  foot  by  foot  up 
the  Etruria's  black  side,  a  crowd  of  immigrants  leaned  over 
the  rail  and  encouraged  us  with  comment  in  which  the 
sportive  and  sarcastic  note  predominated.  We  were  once 
more  under  the  bridge,  and  I  on  my  feet  was  calling  for 
the  captain,  when  a  violent  lurch  all  but  threw  me  overboard 
and  the  boat  began  to  slide  swiftly  astern.  The  boatman 
at  the  oars  had  fallen  in  a  faint  and  was  now  on  his  back 
with  his  legs  in  the  air. 

I  rescued  the  oars  from  going  overboard,  which  would 
have  been  a  sore  calamity,  and  hastily  began  to  row.  It 
sounds  inhuman  but  I  could  expend  no  time  upon  the 
boatman,  who  might  be  dead  for  all  I  knew.  My  exclusive 
concern  was  to  catch  that  steamer  before  she  could  get 
away.  I  fought  the  tide  once  more,  stimulated  by  a  loud 
and  candid  chorus  from  the  steerage  (now  humorously  con- 
vinced that  both  of  us  were  drunk),  rowed  ahead  of  the 
Etruria,  stood  up  as  my  boat  slipped  down  the  tide,  brought 
Captain  McMillan  to  the  side,  and  before  I  had  drifted 
out  of  hearing  extracted  from  him  the  information  that 
he  had  no  news  of  the  Danmark;  an  achievement  of  which, 

138 


Where  Was  the  Danmark? 

if  you  please^  I  am  still  vain.  Then  I  got  my  speechless 
boatman  to  shore,  saw  him  revived,  and  started  for  the  office. 

That  completed  Saturday  night.  The  morning  was  all  but 
gone  when  I  arrived  and  I  deemed  it  best  to  work  at  once 
upon  my  long  story  for  the  next  day's  issue.  More  time 
was  required  than  I  had  expected,  for  many  instances  that 
I  desired  to  cite  must  be  sought  in  the  Herald's  files,  and 
even  with  the  aid  of  the  Herald's  matchless  and  truly  won- 
derful index  system,  the  task  was  slow.  I  was  still  bent 
upon  it  at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when  the  news  editor 
came  upstairs  with  an  Associated  Press  dispatch  from  Lis- 
bon that  in  an  instant  changed  all  the  outlook,  made  my 
labors  useless,  and  deprived  the  world  of  what  I  was  con- 
vinced was  some  rarely  beautiful  literature. 

In  those  days  was  no  cable  connection  with  the  Azores. 
The  Associated  Press  dispatch  said  that  a  Portuguese 
steamer  had  reached  Lisbon  from  Fayal,  in  the  Azores, 
bringing  the  news  that  the  steamer  Missouri  had  put  in 
there  with  the  passengers  and  crew  of  the  Danmark,  picked 
up  at  sea.  The  Missouri,  said  the  dispatch,  was  short  of 
provisions  and  had  stayed  several  days  in  port  to  refit. 
After  which  she  had  started  on  a  certain  day  for  Phila- 
delphia, taking  about  half  of  the  passengers. 

Nothing  was  hinted  as  to  the  nature  of  the  accident  to 
the  Danmark. 

The  Missouri  was  a  cattle  steamer  of  the  Atlantic  Trans- 
port Line,  plying  between  Philadelphia  and  Liverpool. 
When  would  she  arrive  at  Philadelphia?  That  was  the 
next  question.  Careful  estimates  of  her  average  speed, 
based  upon  records  in  the  maritime  journals  of  her  de- 
partures and  arrivals,  showed  that  if  she  sailed  from  Fayal 
as  reported  she  would  be  due  at  Philadelphia  on  Monday, 
the  very  next  day. 

isg 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

Two  of  us  were  now  assigned  to  go  hot  foot  to  Philadel- 
phia^ hire  a  tug,  and  go  down  the  Delaware  to  meet  the 
Missouri  coming  up.  We  reached  Philadelphia  at  half-past 
eight,  and  began  to  ransack  the  water  front  for  an  available 
tug.  It  was  a  Sunday  evening,  and  outwardly  Philadelphia 
then  observed  the  Sabbath  day  to  a  degree  that  would  have 
filled  one  of  my  Puritan  ancestors  with  solemn  joy.  The 
oldest  inhabitants  of  the  water  front  kindly  assured  us 
that  we  could  no  more  get  a  tug  on  Sunday  night  than  we 
could  go  to  perdition,  a  statement  that  seemed  superfluous 
in  view  of  the  condition  of  mind  to  which  we  had  then 
arrived.  Even  a  worldly  service  so  innocuous  as  a  cab 
seemed  impossible  to  be  had.  Far  down  on  the  water  front, 
near  the  ragged  end  of  town,  we  got  news  of  a  tug,  found 
it,  and  went  aboard  only  to  learn  that  the  captain  and 
owner  lived  miles  away  in  one  of  Philadelphia's  inter- 
minable and  apparently  identical  suburbs.  The  ancient 
sea-going  tub  of  a  coupe  that  we  had  succeeded  in  com- 
mandeering made  but  heavy  weather  on  this  dreary  voyage ; 
and  midnight  came  before  we  drew  up  before  the  captain's 
house,  which  stood  in  a  row  of  similar  houses,  on  a  moderate 
compilation,  of  a  mile  and  a  half  in  length.  The  fact  that 
one  could  be  distinguished  from  another  even  by  the  in- 
habitants must  always  strike  the  stranger  as  singular  evi- 
dence of  human  capacity. 

The  worthy  captain  was  asleep.  When  to  him,  standing 
in  his  night  shirt  at  an  upper  window,  had  been  conveyed 
from  us,  standing  on  the  side-walk  below,  intelligence  of 
what  was  toward,  he  said  that  he  would  go  all  right  if  he 
could  get  his  engineer  and  crew,  and  about  the  crew  he 
was  dismal  with  doubt.  The  occasion  being  Sunday  and  the 
place  being  Philadelphia,  his  expert  opinion  was  that 
there  was  nothing  for  any  crew  to  do  but  at  a  remote 

140 


Where  Was  the  Danmarh? 

and  lawless  place  called,  I  think,  a  blind  tiger,  in  sheer 
desperation  to  ply  assiduously  the  bottle.  Still,  the  en- 
gineer might  be  reasonably  sober  and  the  chance  was 
worth  a  journey  to  his  house.  Where  was  the  engineer? 
Oh,  he  lived  out  here  at  Ben  Franklin  and  John  Hancock 
Streets.  How  far  was  that?  About  two  miles.  Loud 
groans  arose  from  the  coupe  at  the  news. 

However,  the  captain  cheerfully  offered  to  accompany 
us  if  we  would  wait  until  he  was  clothed.  He  did  yet  more, 
for  he  sat  with  the  driver  and  piloted  our  ancient  craft, 
by  the  which  mercy  we  arrived  at  our  destination  instead 
of  getting  lost.  Fortune  also  favored  us  so  far  that  the 
engineer  warmed  to  the  enterprise  and  by  his  own  exer- 
tions unearthed  a  passable  crew. 

The  next  requisite  was  a  permit  from  the  Collector  of 
the  Port  to  board  the  Missouri,  when  we  should  find  her; 
to  secure  which  we  must  undergo  another  far  journey  and 
rout  from  his  slumbers  in  a  bosky  suburb  another  excellent 
citizen.  After  which  the  tug  must  be  coaled.  All  of  which 
having  been  concluded,  at  five  o'clock  with  the  dawn  break- 
ing, the  tug,  a  wheezy  and  dubious  contraption,  made  shift 
to  get  down  the  river.    This  completed  Sunday  night. 

By  this  time  I  was  dead  tired,  having  been  two  nights 
and  two  days  without  sleep.  My  purpose  was  to  get  some 
rest  between  our  departure  and  the  appearance  of  the 
Missouri,  but  first  it  developed  that  the  ship  was  without 
a  mate  and  I  was  called  upon  to  steer  while  the  captain 
went  below  to  get  his  breakfast;  immediately  after  which 
there  was  a  cry  that  the  Missouri  was  coming.  All  hands 
got  to  the  upper  deck  to  examine  the  approaching  steamer, 
and  when  she  was  near  enough  she  was  discovered  to  be 
the  British  tramp  Hawarden.  Far  down  the  river  was  the 
trailing  smoke  of  another  steamer,  which  proved  after  a 

141 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

half -hour  of  anxious  watching  to  be  a  German;  and  thus 
the  false  alarms  succeeded  one  another  and  I  was  still  on 
my  feet  when  about  one  o'clock  below  Wilmington,  Dela- 
ware, the  veritable  Missouri  hove  in  sight.  We  hauled 
alongside  and  climbed  aboard. 

There  the  whole  story  was  presently  in  our  hands.  The 
Danmark  had  pounded  steadily  along  until  she  was  almost 
half-way  over.  About  five  o'clock  of  a  morning  the  shaft 
suddenly  broke  aft  of  the  thrust.  She  was  a  single  screw 
steamer;  in  those  days  we  had  scarcely  anything  else.  At 
once  the  engine,  relieved  of  its  weight,  began  to  race,  and 
the  inboard  end  of  the  broken  shaft,  being  now  unsupported, 
whirled  wildly  around,  smashing  through  the  vessel's  skin. 

The  second  engineer  was  in  charge.  At  the  sound  he 
made  a  leap  for  the  valve,  missed  his  footing,  fell,  and 
was  instantly  killed.  His  assistant  on  watch  shut  off  the 
steam.  But  the  poor  old  Danmark  had  been  stabbed  in 
the  vital  part ;  the  water  poured  in  through  the  shaft  tunnel ; 
nothing  could  keep  it  out;  and  as  the  fires  were  soon  ex- 
tinguished the  pumps  were  useless.  It  was  plain  from  the 
first  she  had  but  a  short  time  to  float. 

A  heavy  sea  was  running  and  the  chance  of  a  boat  journey 
looked  desperate  enough,  but  it  alone  was  left.  The  pas- 
sengers were  hustled  on  deck;  the  boats  were  provisioned 
and  slung  free,  and  seem  to  have  been  sufficient  in  number 
and  in  a  condition  to  float.  Two  or  three  had  been  launched 
and  filled  with  passengers  when  the  look-outs  that  had 
been  sent  to  the  mastheads  sighted  the  Missouri.  She  was 
signaled  and  came  tearing  up  with  all  the  steam  she  could 
raise. 

The  honor  of  the  next  two  hours*  work  belongs  partly 
to  Captain  Hamilton  B.  Murrell  of  the  Missouri  and  still 
more  to  his  seamen.     He  stood  lashed  to  a  grating  over 

142 


Where  Was  the  Danmark? 

his  vessel's  side  and  directed  every  detail  of  an  operation 
extremely  delicate  and  hazardous,,  for  eleven  hundred  per- 
sons must  be  transferred  in  a  boiling  sea  and  the  Missouri 
was  no  passenger  ship.  All  the  boats  of  the  Missouri  and 
all  the  boats  of  the  Danmark  were  hard  at  it^  tossed  about 
like  corks^  now  as  high  as  the  Missouri's  bridge^  now  thirty 
feel  below  it;  and  there  were  many  women  and  children 
among  the  passengers.  One  great  difficulty  was  to  keep  the 
overloaded  boats  from  filling  in  the  heavy  surges;  only  in- 
cessant care^  with  good  judgment  and  skill,  kept  them  from 
being  smashed  to  bits  while  the  passengers,  mostly  in  slings, 
were  being  hoisted  up  the  side.  But  so  laboring  they  got 
aboard  the  Missouri  every  soul  the  Danmark  had  carried, 
and  without  a  mishap.  When  the  last  boat-load  left  the 
stricken  steamer  her  upper  deck  was  almost  awash  and 
the  sailors  had  barely  cleared  the  radius  of  danger  from 
suction  when  she  gave  the  final  lurch  and  went  down.  So 
narrow  was  the  escape. 

The  Missouri  carried  stores  enough  for  only  a  small 
crew.  Captain  Murrell  saw  that  he  could  not  carry  to 
an  American  port  the  eleven  hundred  persons  whose  lives 
he  had  thus  so  providentially  saved,  and  he  hooked  up  for 
the  Azores.  Even  with  everybody  on  half  rations  the  food 
was  exhausted  before  he  had  gone  far,  and  for  the  last 
twenty-four  hours  nobody  had  anything  to  eat.  All  the 
Missourians  shared  generously  with  the  rescued  ones  and 
all  went  hungry  together.  The  accommodations  on  board 
were  necessarily  of  the  crudest,  but  the  carpenter  and  the 
sailors  working  together,  made  of  canvas  and  straw  some- 
thing like  beds.  It  was  a  fortunate  chance  that  the  Mis- 
souri, being  a  cattle  boat,  was  fitted  with  enormous  con- 
densers and  the  supply  of  fresh  water  was  unlimited. 

At  Fayal  the  inhabitants  poured  upon  the  waifs  every 

143 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

kindness.  Most  of  the  passengers  had  no  more  clothing 
than  they  stood  in.  The  people  of  Fayal  supplied  all  these 
needs,  found  lodging  and  shelter  for  the  unfortunates, 
helped  Captain  Murrell  to  replenish  his  stores  and  line 
his  forecastle  with  bunks,  and  cheered  him  to  the  echo 
when  with  one-half  of  the  Danmark's  survivors,  being  all 
he  could  accommodate  on  his  ship,  he  sailed  for  Philadel- 
phia. The  remainder  were  later  brought  to  New  York  by 
the  steamer  Wieland. 

This  was  the  story  gathered  from  many  grateful  souls 
as  the  Missouri  swept  around  the  curves  of  the  Delaware. 
At  six  o'clock  we  were  off  the  lower  end  of  the  city.  And 
here  I  observed  a  thing  that  filled  me  with  wonder.  The 
bare  fact  of  the  rescue  had  been  printed  in  that  day's 
newspapers  and  now,  behold,  every  pier  end  was  black  with 
shouting  people,  every  street  end  and  vacant  spot*  was 
thronged.  As  we  came  along  bells  rang  for  joy,  whistles 
were  blown  on  every  steamer,  vast  crowds  cheered  and 
cheered  again.  As  the  Missouri  worked  into  her  slip,  the 
wharf  was  seen  to  be  packed  with  people,  men  shouted  and 
shook  hands  and  manifested  an  exuberant  rejoicing.  Few 
of  the  survivors  had  relatives,  friends,  or  acquaintances 
in  that  great  crowd,  but  if  all  had  been  relatives  the  wel- 
come could  have  been  no  warmer  nor  the  happiness  surer 
than  showed  in  every  face.  Young  Captain  Murrell  was 
the  hero  of  the  hour. 

Old  ocean,  the  hereditary  enemy,  the  thing  men  instinc- 
tively fear,  had  been  baffled;  these  had  been  snatched  from 
his  very  grasp ;  all  hearts  leaped  with  delight  at  his  defeat. 

We  took  a  train  at  7:30  for  New  York,  arrived  there  at 
9 :30,  and  between  us  furnished  to  the  Herald  nearly  a  page 
of  copy.  Having  stayed  to  see  this  made  up,  about  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  I  boarded  a  train  on  the  Brooklyn 

144 


Where  Was  the  Danmark? 

Elevated  Railroad^  bound  for  home.  I  was  fully  aware 
that  a  reaction  after  these  amusements  was  imminent  and 
therefore  contracted  with  a  guard  that  for  certain  substan- 
tial considerations^  being  cash  in  hand,  he  was  to  awaken 
me  at  the  Nostrand  Avenue  station,  where  I  was  to  alight. 
The  obligation  must  have  seemed  slight  to  him,  for  when 
I  awoke  I  had  been  carried  too  far  by  nearly  two  miles. 
I  reached  home  a  little  before  five  o'clock  and  fell  asleep 
in  my  clothes,  thus  concluding  Monday  night.  Except  for 
the  time  I  dozed  on  the  "  L  "  train  I  had  been  without 
sleep  for  sixty-five  hours  and  of  the  last  ninety  hours  had 
slept  but  six. 

A  great  marine  painter  celebrated  the  escape  of  the  Dan- 
mark's  passengers  in  a  famous  picture  that  bears  the  sig- 
nificant and  appropriate  title: 

"  And  Not  a  Soul  Was  Lost." 


145 


IX 

THE  ROCKY  ROAD   TO   JOHNSTOWN 

The  New  York  police  parade  of  1889  fell  upon  Friday, 
May  31.  It  was  an  annual  event  and  we  held  among  us  a 
doctrine  that  to  make  of  an  annual  event  a  story  fresh 
and  new  was  a  test  of  workmanship.  About  ten  o'clock  that 
night  I  was  putting  the  dash  mark  at  the  end  of  a  story 
about  the  parade  that  I  believed  to  be  a  morceau  of  great 
excellence  and  fully  responding  to  the  requirements  of  the 
test  when  the  night  editor  spread  before  my  eyes  a  bulletin 
telegram  from  Latrobe,  Pennsylvania.  It  was  to  the  effect 
that  a  dam  had  burst  at  Johnstown,  a  few  miles  above 
Latrobe,  and  at  least  twelve  persons  had  lost  their  lives.  I 
receipted  for  the  emergency  fund  of  one  hundred  dollars, 
kept  in  the  office  for  such  purposes,  and  started  cheerfully 
for  Johnstown  by  way  of  the  Cortlandt  Street  ferry.  In 
those  days  the  Herald  occupied  its  old  building  at  Broad- 
way and  Ann  Street. 

At  Cortlandt  Street  I  bought  a  ticket  to  Johnstown, 
learned  that  the  train  would  leave  at  fifteen  minutes  past 
midnight,  bought  a  lower  berth  on  the  sleeping  car,  and 
having  more  than  an  hour  on  my  hands  sauntered  back 
to  the  Herald  office.  My  baggage  consisted  of  an  umbrella 
and  a  light  overcoat^the  umbrella  mine  own  and  having  a 
silver  handle  of  artistic  merit;  the  overcoat  the  property 
of  one  of  my  fellows.  He  had  purchased  it  the  day  before 
and  it  was  the  pride  of  his  young  life.     I  remember  it 

146 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

had  broad  facings  of  watered  silk  (which  were  then  the 
fashion)  and  the  color  was  a  delicate  blue  of  the  shade 
known^  I  believe,  as  robin's  egg.  He  had  lent  it  under 
protest,  but  as  I  knew  I  should  be  coming  back  the  next 
night  I  felt  that  he  could  and  ought  to  forego  its  glories 
for  one  day. 

At  the  office  I  found  that  successive  bulletins  had  in- 
creased the  probable  loss  of  life  to  twenty  and  finally  to 
forty.  These  additions  I  recognized  as  the  usual  em- 
broidery of  the  bulletin  writer.  Odd,  I  said,  how  the 
country  correspondent  always  loses  his  head  in  the  presence 
of  a  story.  Such  things  as  forty  fatalities  in  a  dam-burst 
do  not  happen.  I  see  a  night  of  rest  in  my  lower  berth, 
a  column  story  filed  early,  and  back  to-morrow  night. 

But  when  I  returned  to  the  ferry  house  I  was  somewhat 
dismayed  and  ruffled  to  find  that  there  would  be  no  sleeping 
car  to  Johnstown  and  that  the  12:15  train  would  run  no 
farther  than  Philadelphia  because  the  tracks  were  under 
water  at  Harrisburg.  But  there  was  a  "  newspaper  train  " 
from  Philadelphia  on,  a  contrivance  with  one  day  coach  that 
would  certainly  get  through,  and  with  this  I  could  easily 
connect. 

By  this  time  there  were  four  of  us,  each  representing  a 
New  York  newspaper.  As  the  12:15  would  reach  Phila- 
delphia about  three  o'clock  to  go  to  bed  was  not  worth 
while  so  we  sat  in  the  smoking  car.  At  Philadelphia  we 
made  a  hasty  luncheon  of  sandwiches  and  got  away  on 
the  newspaper  train,  which  proved  to  be  all  that  was  said 
of  it  and  more.  The  last  three  miles  of  its  journey  to 
Harrisburg  it  proceeded  through  a  vast  lake  with  the  water 
but  an  inch  below  the  fire  box  and  the  terrified  passengers 
convinced  that  the  rocking  train  was  about  to  leave  the 
invisible  tracks. 

147 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

That  was  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  at 
Harrisburg  the  train  stopped;  neither  was  there  another 
that  would  take  us  farther.  The  operation  of  the  road 
had  come  to  an  abrupt  halt.  For  seven  days  the  Alleghany 
mountain  region  had  been  flooded  from  cyclones,  cloud- 
bursts, and  phenomenal  rainfalls.  Every  creek  had  become 
a  river  and  every  river  a  flood.  The  culmination  of  these 
disasters  had  fallen  the  day  before  in  a  final  terrific  storm 
through  the  mountains.  Miles  upon  miles  of  track  had 
been  washed  away,  cuttings  filled,  bridges  and  trestles 
smashed  to  pieces  and  swept  down,  towns  inundated,  stations 
destroyed.  No  trains  would  move  westward  from  Harris- 
burg for  days,  perhaps  even  for  weeks.  At  first  these 
statements  of  the  railroad  officers  seemed  to  us  preposter- 
ous ;  a  few  moments  of  rapid  investigation  showed  that  they 
were  only  too  well  founded. 

Meantime,  how  about  the  flood  at  Johnstown?  You  will 
readily  understand  our  plight ;  we  must  move  forward  if  only 
on  foot.  We  had  been  sent  to  Johnstown:  to  Johnstown 
accordingly  we  go.  This  blockade  is  only  on  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad.  About  one  hundred  miles  to  the  south  the 
Pennsylvania  is  paralleled  by  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio. 
Now  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  has  also  a  branch  line  to 
Johnstown,  I  saw  it  in  the  guide  when  I  was  looking  up 
time-tables,  and  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  is  out  of  the  storm 
belt.  If  we  had  only  taken  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  in  the 
first  place !  But  here  is  a  little  cross-country  line  running 
south  from  Harrisburg  called  the  Cumberland  Valley.  It 
strikes  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  at  a  place  called  Martinsburg, 
West  Virginia.  What  more  could  be  desired?  Here  is  a 
train  on  the  Cumberland  Valley  that  will  start  in  five 
minutes  for  Martinsburg.  So  we  jump  aboard  and  head 
off  to  the  south. 

148 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

At  Hagerstown,  Maryland^  eighteen  miles  from  Martins- 
burg,  at  eleven  o'clock  the  train  comes  to  a  stop.  We  are 
told  it  will  not  go  any  farther.  There  is  a  bridge  across 
the  Potomac  River  about  half-way  between  Hagerstown 
and  Martinsburg  and  that  bridge  has  been  so  shaken  and 
battered  by  flood  and  freshets  that  the  superintendent,  who 
is  with  us,  dares  not  allow  the  train  to  risk  the  crossing 
of  it.  But  there  is  a  wrecking  car  going  on  in  a  few  minutes 
and  we  can  ride  on  that  as  far  as  the  bridge  if  we  like. 
Then  we  can  walk  the  bridge  and  get  a  farmer  on  the  other 
side  to  drive  us  to  Martinsburg. 

It  is  not  encouraging  news  but  we  make  the  best  of  a 
situation  undeniably  grave;  for  again  how  about  that  flood 
in  Johnstown  .f*  We  ride  on  the  wrecking  car.  It  proves 
to  be  a  derrick  without  springs  or  seats.  We  stand  and 
might  count  every  rail  joint  as  we  bounce  along.  Arrived 
at  the  bridge  we  see  at  a  glance  why  the  train  could  not 
cross  it.  The  thing  is  six  inches  askew,  knocked  so  by 
the  flood  and  the  wreckage  that  the  flood  bears.  The 
rails  are  already  twisted  out  of  shape  and  in  the  center 
the  structure  seems  hanging  by  no  support  that  one  would 
care  to  trust.  Below  it  shoots  the  yellow  flood,  a  mile 
wide.  Every  few  minutes  something  it  carries  with  it, 
an  uprooted  tree,  a  flatboat,  and  once  a  farmer's  barn, 
strikes  the  bridge  and  it  shakes  visibly. 

I  had  small  taste  for  the  crossing  of  that  bridge  and 
yet  the  thing  had  to  be  done.  There  was  no  superstructure 
of  any  kind ;  it  was,  in  fact,  no  more  than  a  trestle  and 
unprotected.  Between  the  rails  of  the  one  track  planks 
were  laid  singly  and  end  to  end.  A  few  inches  under 
them,  it  seemed,  was  the  foaming  river,  visible  between 
the  ties.  Upon  the  rather  absurd  manner  of  our  crossing 
I  have  since  reflected  with  some  amusement.     The  main 

149 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

thing,  we  are  told,  is  that  a  man  shall  keep  his  eyes  from  the 
shooting  water,  lest  it  bewilder  him  and  he  lose  his  footing. 
Therefore,  upon  advice,  the  first  man  takes  between  his 
teeth  a  long  cigar,  upon  the  end  of  which  he  fastens  his 
gaze;  the  second  man  looks  steadfastly  at  the  first 
man's  heels,  and  so  on.  Thus  moving,  spaced  at  about 
equal  distances,  we  get  across.  Twenty-five  minutes 
later  the  whole  bridge  goes  out,  swept  away  by  the  tor- 
rent. 

We  wait  for  no  news  of  it  but  strike  for  a  farmer's  house 
about  a  mile  down  the  road.  He  gives  us  a  dinner  (when 
it  is  cooked)  of  corn  pone,  salt  pork,  and  potatoes,  and 
then,  with  maddening  deliberation,  puts  his  team  into  his 
wagon  to  take  us  to  Martinsburg.  About  two  o'clock  we 
start.  T^he  roads  are  bad,  the  rain  squalls  frequent,  the 
farmer  imperturbably  fixed  upon  a  deliberate  advance,  and 
it  is  nearly  six  o'clock  when  we  see  the  roofs  of  Martins- 
burg. At  the  sight  of  the  railroad  station  we  leap  away 
from  the  astonished  farmer  and  scramble  up  the  steps  to 
the  ticket  office,  there  to  be  met  with  the  final  disaster 
of  that  unlucky  day.  Sixty  miles  of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio 
track  are  now  under  water^  and  no  train  can  run  west  for 
many  days. 

Sure  of  it.^  Absolutely.  The  train  dispatcher  has  the 
telegrams.  We  stand  and  mentally  kick  ourselves  for  ever 
leaving  Harrisburg.  From  Harrisburg  there  is  still  an- 
other way,  northward  first  by  Williamsport,  then  west  to 
Pittsburg,  then  back  to  Johnstown.  If  we  were  back  in 
Harrisburg  we  should  try  that ;  it  must  be  open.  Evidently 
the  wise  thing  is  to  go  back  to  the  Potomac  bridge,  cross 
it,  get  up  to  Hagerstown,  hire  an  engine,  and  return  to 
Harrisburg. 

**  You  can't  do  that,  either,"  says  the  sympathetic  train 

150 


The  Rocky  Eoad  to  Johnstown 

dispatcher.  **  That  bridge  has  gone  down  now  and  you 
can't  get  across." 

"  No  way  ?  " 

"  Absolutely  none.  No  skiff  could  possibly  get  across 
that  current  and  I  don't  suppose  you  could  swim  it.  You're 
not  alone  in  your  trouble.  The  superintendent  of  the  Cum- 
berland Valley  is  here  and  he  wants  to  get  out  worse  than 
you  do^  and  can't  do  it." 

We  stand  and  stare  at  the  man  in  silence.     Then  I  say: 

**  We  seem  to  be  cast  away  on  an  island.  I  will  wire  the 
Herald  that  I  have  made  a  hash  of  this  thing  and  they 
must  send  someone  else  to  cover  the  flood." 

"  You  can't  do  that  either/'  said  the  train  dispatcher. 
**  The  last  wire  went  down  more  than  an  hour  ago.  You 
can't  telegraph  from  here  in  any  direction." 

It  was  now  dark  and  we  sat  down  morosely  to  a  bad 
dinner  in  the  little  hotel.  The  Cumberland  Valley  super- 
intendent sat  with  us.  He  looked  us  over  and  I  think  he 
took  pity  on  us.  We  were  despairingly  studying  maps 
and  time-tables,  and  had  decided  that  our  only  chance  of 
rescue  was  to  drive  that  night  about  forty  miles  to  another 
line  of  railroad  and  get  a  train  for  Richmond,  Virginia — a 
feat  ridiculous  enough  to  make  us  an  enduring  jest  to  the 
whole  newspaper  trade.  Four  of  us  started  for  Johnstown, 
Pennsylvania,  due  west  three  hundred  and  seventy  miles  and 
we  brought  up  in  Richmond,  Virginia,  four  hundred  miles 
due  south.  The  idea  fills  us  with  sardonic  mirth.  Here's  re- 
porting for  you !    But  at  this  point  the  superintendent  said : 

"  Well,  don't  hire  your  horses  just  yet,  anyway.  I'm 
going  to  get  out  of  this  trap.  Let's  see  first  what  we  can 
do  without  going  around  Robin  Hood's  barn." 

He  took  us  back  to  the  railroad  station,  where  we  passed 
dreary  hours  of  waiting  while  he  sought  diligently  for  the 

151 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

information  he  needed.  About  twelve  miles  below  Martins- 
burg  was  another  line  of  railroad  crossing  the  Potomac 
on  another  bridge  and  also  making  Hagerstown.  As  the 
wires  were  down  he  could  not  discover  whether  this  bridge 
still  stood.  If  it  stood  his  plan  was  to  take  an  engine 
on  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio,  run  down  to  the  junction  point, 
risk  an  imperiled  Y,  get  upon  the  cross-line,  and  so  over 
to  Hagerstown.  Some  time  after  midnight  he  learned  that 
the  bridge  still  stood,  and  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  officers 
promised  him  an  engine  from  its  roundhouse  at  daybreak. 

We  caught  a  little  sleep  in  our  chairs  and  at  daybreak 
we  started.  There  was  no  certainty  that  the  bridge  would 
be  standing  by  the  time  we  reached  it.  By  good  fortune 
it  was,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  that  morning  we  stood  once 
more  upon  the  station  platform  at  Hagerstown  and  in  time 
to  board  a  train  for  Harrisburg. 

On  the  way  we  unfolded  to  the  sympathetic  superin- 
tendent our  plan  of  moving  by  the  way  of  Williamsport 
and  the  long  detour  north.  He  strongly  advised  against  it. 
He  said: 

"  I  know  all  this  country  well.  You  would  be  days  get- 
ting through  by  that  route.  Let  me  tell  you  something. 
The  only  way  to  get  to  Johnstown  now  is  to  drive  there 
from  Chamber sburg,  a  station  half-way  between  Hagers- 
town and  Harrisburg.  Telegraph  ahead  for  your  teams 
(I'll  give  you  the  names,  I  know  everybody  in  those  towns), 
have  them  waiting  for  you,  and  you  will  have  no  trouble. 
It's  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles  and  you  have  two 
ranges  of  mountains  to  cross,  the  Blue  Ridge  and  the 
Alleghany,  but  it  can  be  done  and  it  is  the  only  thing  that 
can  be  done  now." 

"  When  do  we  get  to  this  Chambersburg  ?  "  we  asked. 

"  At  two  o'clock.     We  meet  the  down  train  there.    And 

152 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

let  me  tell  you  something  else.  I  believe  in  playing  fair 
and  giving  everybody  a  chance.  That  knot  of  Philadelphia 
reporters  that  you  saw  at  the  station  platform  at  Harris- 
burg  yesterday  morning  is  there  yet.  I  know  some  of  them. 
They've  been  telegraphing  me  for  advice.  IVe  put  them 
up  to  this  same  scheme.  They  are  on  their  way  to  Cham- 
bersburg  on  the  down  train,  and  they'll  get  there  about  the 
same  moment  that  you  do.  It  will  be  a  race.  Well,  I'm 
for  that.  Go  in  and  may  the  best  side  win.  You  see  I'm 
impartial." 

"  Lead  us  to  a  telegraph  office,"  said  we  in  reply.  At 
the  next  station  we  wired  for  a  carriage  to  meet  us  at 
Chambersburg.  When  the  train  pulled  in  we  were  hanging 
upon  the  car  steps.  At  the  same  moment  the  down  train 
was  pulling  in,  we  on  the  main  track,  the  down  train  on  a 
siding.  This  gave  us  about  one-half  minute's  advantage. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  platform  we  could  see  three  car- 
riages waiting.  So  the  Philadelphia  reporters  had  evidently 
telegraphed  ahead  as  much  as  we.  Before  the  train  had 
fairly  stopped  we  were  running  across  the  platform. 

**  In  here,  boys ! "  shouted  the  cleverest  of  us,  holding 
open  a  carriage  door.  His  good  quick  eye  had  scanned 
the  three  carriages  and  infallibly  selected  the  lightest.  As 
we  went  up  the  hill  back  of  Chambersburg  we  could  see 
our  competitors  lumbering  out  of  town  in  an  ancient  family 
coach. 

At  seven  o'clock  we  came  to  McConnellsburg,  the  end  of 
the  first  stage.  Philadelphia  was  nowhere  in  sight;  not 
even  a  whiif  of  dust  far  down  the  road  betrayed  the  com- 
ing of  the  enemy,  and  it  was  with  minds  content  that  we 
ate  a  hurried  supper  and  went  forth  to  the  waiting  carriages. 
One  was  a  two-seated  side-bar,  light  as  a  feather ;  the  other 
two  were  Noah's  arks  on  wheels.    We  made  for  the  sidebar. 

153 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

The  driver  (who  was  also  the  owner)  viewed  us  with 
suspicion.     He  said: 

**  This  team  is  engaged  for  Mr.  Brown." 

"  Right !  "  said  Wardman  of  the  Tribune,  our  clever  boy, 
"  I'm  Mr.  Brown." 

"  But  I  heard  these  gentlemen  call  you  something  else,'* 
said  the  driver,  unconvinced.  **  At  the  hotel  they  called  you 
Wardman." 

**  Oh,  that  was  for  short — ^nickname,  you  know.  Jump  in, 
jump  in! " 

**  I  thought  there  were  only  three  in  your  party,"  said 
the  driver,  still  holding  back. 

"  Four,  my  dear  man,"  said  Wardman.  "  Just  look  at 
your  telegram.  I'm  sure  it  says  four.  Come  on — ^we're 
all  ready." 

"  I  don't  see  how  we  can  manage  three  on  that  back 
seat,"  the  driver  grumbled.  **  It's  too  narrow.  This 
machine  was  only  built  for  four  persons,  you  know." 

"  My  dear  man,"  said  Wardman,  "  the  easiest  thing  in 
the  world.  Look  here — ^plenty  of  room,  you  see.  Let's 
start — we're  all  right." 

So  we  get  under  way,  the  driver  still  dissatisfied.  Doubt- 
less he  has  good  reasons  but  still  inferior  to  ours  that  sit 
upon  the  back  seat.  This  back  seat  was  designed  for  two 
persons  and  those  not  of  too  much  girth.  To  carry  three, 
the  third  must  stand  with  one  foot  on  the  step  by  the  side 
of  the  carriage.  Yet  the  machine  is  very  light,  the  horses 
are  strong  and  fleet,  and  we  go  swiftly  and  well.  There 
is  still  light  in  the  western  sky  when  we  come  to  Harrison- 
ville,  our  first  place  of  trouble.  The  bridge  at  Harrisonville 
has  gone  out.  The  nearest  remaining  bridge  is  three  miles 
up  the  stream.  We  examine  the  banks  where  we  stand. 
They  are  fairly  steep  but  not  more  than  six  feet  high  and 

154 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

the  stream  at  the  bottom^  although  swift  and  swollen,  is 
not  unfordable.  We  take  the  horses  out  and  the  protesting 
driver,  riding  on  the  back  of  one,  gets  them  across.  Then 
we  turn  the  side-bar  around  and  back  it  carefully  down 
the  banks  until  it  stands  in  the  middle  of  the  stream  with 
the  water  not  much  above  the  hubs.  Then  we  crawl  out 
to  it,  pass  a  trace  around  the  rear  axle,  get  to  shore  on  the 
other  side,  and  with  all  hands  on  the  trace  drag  the  side- 
bar up  the  opposite  bank,  put  the  horses  in,  and  roll  away 
again.  And  if  it  grieves  us  to  think  that  Philadelphia  in 
the  Noah's  Ark  must  drive  three  miles  up  the  stream  and 
three  miles  back  we  manage  to  master  our  sorrow  and  look 
the  inevitable  squarely  in  the  face. 

Now  we  begin  to  ascend  and  hour  after  hour  the  road 
winds  upward  in  the  dark.  There  is  no  moon  and  plenty 
of  rain  in  the  clouds.  At  times  the  driver  desires  to  stop 
that  his  horses  may  rest.  At  such  times  we  alight  and 
walk.  By  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  reach  the  summit 
of  the  mountains  and  begin  to  descend  on  the  other  side. 
An  hour  later  the  driver  pulls  up  in  front  of  what  he  says 
is  the  farm  house  of  a  Pennsylvania  Dutchman. 

*'  This  is  Ray's  Hill,"  he  says,  "  and  as  far  as  I  can  take 
you.  From  here  on  down  to  the  Juniata  River  the  road 
is  all  washed  out.  We'll  wake  up  the  Dutchman,  who  is  a 
friend  of  mine,  and  he  or  one  of  his  sons  will  guide  you 
down  to  the  river  with  lanterns.  You'd  break  your  necks 
in  the  dark.     One  of  you  go  to  the  door  and  knock." 

I  can  vaguely  discern  the  outlines  of  a  fence  and  a  gate. 
Through  this  I  pass  to  a  gravel  walk,  advancing  on  which 
to  the  accompaniment  of  a  pack  of  awakened  dogs  I  come  to 
a  door  upon  which  I  begin  to  hammer  with  my  fists;  the 
dogs  meantime,  according  to  my  best  calculations,  about 
to  break  loose  upon  me,  and  I  hate  dogs.     After  a  time 

155 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

I  am  aware  of  the  opening  of  a  window  above  me.  I  look 
up  and  in  a  faint  light  shining  from  the  interior  I  can 
see  the  form  of  a  man  holding  a  gmi.  He  contemplates 
me  in  silence. 

"  Good-evening,*'  I  say  in  my  most  ingratiating  manner, 
"  we  are  travelers  bound  to  Johnstown,  and  the  road's 
washed  out.  We  are  sorry  to  disturb  you,  but  we  are  in 
a  fix  and  we  need  some  help." 

I  had  managed  to  forget  the  name  of  the  driver. 

The  man  above  me  made  no  response  but  still  looked 
steadily  down  upon  me. 

**  May  we  put  up  our  horses  here,"  I  go  on  after  a  pause, 
"  and  get  a  lantern  so  we  can  walk  down  to  the  river  ?  " 

No  response  from  above  and  I  confess  that  at  this  stage 
of  the  proceedings  I  began  to  get  nervous.  I  could  make 
out  that  the  man  never  took  his  eyes  from  me. 

"  Good-evening,  sir !  '*  I  yell.  "  Can  you  hear  me  ? 
We  want  to  get  some  help." 

Silence  follows  as  before  and  then,  in  a  slow,  thick 
voice : 

"  Where  you  say  you  come  from  ?  " 

"  From  New  York." 

Silence  again,  and  then: 

"Huh.     From  New  York.     Be  you  armed .^" 

I  said  we  were  not,  but  were  merely  poor  travelers  try- 
ing to  get  to  Johnstown.  Presently  the  window  above  closed 
and  after  a  time  a  thin  sword  of  light  flashed  under  the 
door,  there  was  the  sound  of  slipping  bolts  and  of  a  falling 
chain,  and  the  door  opened  upon  an  old  man  with  long 
white  hair  and  two  stalwart  youths — all  armed  with  guns. 
In  the  rear  huddled  some  women. 

**  Now,"  said  the  old  man,  "  you  come  into  the  light  here, 
and  let's  see  if  you're  from  New  York." 

156 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

So  I  advanced  into  the  lamp  light  and  the  three  looked 
me  over. 

*'  I  guess  that's  all  right/*  said  the  old  man  at  last. 
**  You  don't  look  like  one  of  them  bandits.  Now  what  do 
you  want  here  .'*  " 

I  told  him  my  story  and  by  this  the  name  of  the  driver 
came  back  to  me.  At  the  mention  of  it,  one  of  the  young 
men  lighted  a  lantern  and  went  hurriedly  out  of  the  front 
door,  while  the  women  folk  made  a  simultaneous  movement 
to  the  rear  and  I  could  hear  the  rattle  of  dishes.  In  a 
few  moments  my  companions  were  brought  in  and  the 
women  appeared  with  cuts  of  pie,  slices  of  cheese,  and 
eventually  hot  coffee.  I  have  never  been  among  better 
people.  They  cheerfully  put  the  horses  up,  and  both  of 
the  sons  insisted  upon  going  with  us  to  the  Juniata.  The 
old  man  apologized  for  the  incivility  of  his  reception. 

"  This  is  a  lonely  place,'*  he  said,  "  and  the  farmers 
often  get  robbed.     We  must  protect  ourselves.'* 

He  fell  presently  into  a  brown  study  while  we  ate. 

**  What  did  you  say  you  were  going  to  Johnstown  for }  '* 
he  said  after  a  time. 

I  explained  again  that  each  of  us  represented  a  New  York 
newspaper,  one  the  Tribune^  another  the  Times,  another 
the  World,  and  I  the  Herald,  and  that  we  were  going  to 
Johnstown  to  report  the  great  disaster  for  our  journals. 
He  considered  this  for  some  time.  At  last  he  looked  up 
and  said: 

"  It  ain't  no  use.  You  better  stay  here  with  us.  It  ain*t 
no  use  you  going  to  Johnstown.** 

"Why  not?  "said  I. 

"  Why,*'  he  said,  "  the  flood  sweep  that  town  so  there 
ain*t  no  printing  press  left  in  it.  No,  sir,  I  tell  you  it  ain*t 
no  use.** 

157 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

We  had  reason  to  thank  the  two  stalwart  sons  and  their 
lanterns  before  we  got  to  the  river.  The  road  had  been 
washed  out  all  the  way.  Where  had  been  road  now  ran 
a  creek  at  the  bottom  of  a  gully  and  we  must  make  the 
two  miles  clinging  to  the  banks.  One  young  man  with  a 
lantern  led  the  way,  the  other  brought  up  the  rear.  At 
half-past  three  we  reached  the  Juniata.  The  crazy  old 
wooden  bridge  hung  by  the  ends,  for  the  middle  pier  had 
been  washed  away,  and  at  the  center  the  structure  sagged 
perilously  downward.  The  sons  took  us  across  with  their 
lanterns — which  was  a  mercy,  for  some  of  the  planks  were 
missing.  At  the  other  end  stood  the  fresh  teams.  We 
picked  the  lightest  carriage  and  with  the  road  growing  plain 
in  the  dawning  light,  we  bowled  away  again,  past  Bedford 
Springs  with  its  hotels,  on  to  Everett  where  we  changed 
conveyances  again,  and  so  pressed  on. 

Of  the  last  and  by  far  the  hardest  stage  of  that  journey 
my  recollections  are  not  of  the  clearest.  I  remember  drink- 
ing immoderately  of  coffee  at  a  strange  little  wayside  inn, 
for  we  were  now  worn  out  and  craving  stimulants,  and  I 
remember  how  the  proprietor  of  the  inn  and  I  enlightened 
each  other  about  cigars.  I  called  for  some  after  breakfast, 
for  our  stock  of  tobacco  was  exhausted.  The  landlord 
appeared  with  two  boxes  of  the  longest  cigars  I  had  ever 
seen,  and  not  knowing  that  we  were  in  the  heart  of  the 
Pennsylvania  tobacco  region  I  was  much  astonished. 

"  These,"  he  said  (indicating),  "  are  twofers  and  these 
are  threefers.'* 

I  took  two  of  the  twofers  and  laid  down  a  quarter. 
He  fished  up  two  dimes  and  held  them  toward  me. 

"What's  this?  "said  I. 

**  You  took  two  twofers  and  give  me  a  quarter.  Well, 
here's  your  change.     No,  we  don't  have  no  call  for  them 

158 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

nickel  cigars.  But  let  me  tell  jou,  young  fellow,  there 
ain't  no  better  cigars  in  Pennsylvany  than  what  you've 
got  right  there  now." 

From  this  place  the  road  went  upward  steadily.  About 
nine  o'clock  rain  began  to  fall  again.  At  intervals  we  must 
get  out  and  walk.  Alas  for  the  overcoat  of  robin's  egg  blue ! 
Long  before  this  it  had  become  a  sight  to  touch  any  heart. 
And  the  silk  umbrella  with  the  chased  silver  handle  of 
artistic  design — long  since  that  had  vanished  from  my  sight, 
I  know  not  how.  Yet  I  was  far  from  being  the  most  pitiable 
member  of  our  company.  One  of  us,  I  regret  to  say,  on 
that  Friday  evening  that  somehow  seemed  already  very 
far  oif  had  been  engaged  upon  some  affair  of  moment, 
his  specialty  being  statesmanship,  and  returning  to  the 
office  had  been  unfeelingly  commanded  forth  in  a  frock 
coat  of  faultless  design  and  a  pair  of  dainty  patent  leather 
shoes.  This  gorgeous  garmenture  (now  caked  and  striped 
with  mud)  and  his  patent  leather  shoes,  presently  cut  into 
ribbons,  presented  a  spectacle  so  dismally  in  keeping  with 
my  own  attire  that  I  offered  him  the  overcoat  of  robin's 
egg  blue. 

So  many  had  been  our  disasters  that  we  deemed  we 
were  under  some  hateful  charm  or  evil  spell,  comparing 
our  fate  to  that  of  the  Flying  Dutchman.  As  he  had  been 
doomed  never  to  pass  the  Cape  we  had  been  doomed  never 
to  get  to  Johnstown.  We  had  been  dispatched  thither  on 
a  Friday ;  Monday  morning  found  us  struggling  up  a  boggy 
road  in  Pennsylvania,  still  far  from  our  goal  after  wander- 
ings in  four  states.  And  now  we  said  the  harness  was 
certain  to  give  away  or  the  wagon  to  break  down;  both 
of  which  events  must  presently  have  happened.  I  remem- 
ber that  a  hame  broke  near  the  top  of  a  hill  and  we  vio- 
lently borrowed  one  of  a  protesting  farmer  to  take  its  place ; 

159 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

and  I  recall  standing  half-asleep  in  the  midst  of  a  pelt- 
ing rain  while  with  strings  and  bits  of  rope  and  wire  the 
driver  patched  a  broken  support  over  one  of  the  springs. 

From  the  summit  of  the  Alleghanies,  which  we  reached 
about  noon^  two  possible  roads  (the  driver  said)  led  to 
Johnstown.  One  was  regular  and  well  ordered,  but  round- 
about and  there  was  no  certainty  about  its  bridges.  The 
other,  not  quite  a  road  but  more  of  a  loggers*  track,  led 
straight  down  the  mountain  and  was  only  half  as  long  as 
the  regular  road.  The  question  was,  which  did  we  wish 
to  risk?  He  would  not  guarantee  either,  said  this  conscien- 
tious driver,  but  he  could  tell  us  one  thing  for  a  certainty. 
If  we  took  the  loggers*  road  we  must  walk  most  of  the 
way.  How  much  could  we  save?  About  two  hours.  Say 
no  more.     We  are  for  the  loggers*  track. 

Conscientious  as  the  driver  is,  he  has  underestimated  the 
walking  requirements  of  that  route;  also  his  descriptive 
powers  have  fallen  short  of  its  horrors.  By  what  stretch 
of  the  imagination  it  was  ever  called  a  road,  I  know  not, 
but  at  least  it  was  never  constructed  for  vehicles  that  have 
wheels.  From  the  summit  to  the  bottom  we  walk  where  we 
do  not  slide,  or  jump,  or  where  it  is  not  necessary  that 
with  our  united  strength  we  should  assist  the  wagon  down 
the  trail,  which  leads  three-quarters  of  the  way  over  jagged 
rocks  and  the  rest  by  bogs  and  quagmires.  Meantime  the 
rain  falls  without  ceasing;  cold  on  the  summit,  with  fierce 
gusts  of  wind,  and  at  the  bottom  a  downpour  that  the 
cheerful  member,  with  an  expiring  effort  at  mirth,  likens 
in  some  trite  jest  to  the  Noachian  flood  and  us  to  the 
drowning  sinners  therein. 

Little  we  cared.  My  own  head  was  singing,  and  over- 
wrought nerves,  sleeplessness,  and  worry  wrought  a  curious 
transformation  in  the  most  peaceable  and  lovable  of  our 

160 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

troop.  I  remember  that  he  savagely  resented  even  the 
brotherly  offer  of  a  cigar  and  that  when  at  last  we  reached 
the  first  barrier  erected  outside  of  the  ruined  town,  my 
usually  placable  friend  tried  to  assault  the  policeman  that 
halted  us. 

From  all  this  condition  we  were  presently  aroused  by 
the  sight  of  the  bare  swept  plain  at  the  junction  of  two 
rivers  where  once  had  stood  the  greater  part  of  Johnstown. 
In  spite  of  spells,  enchantments,  and  persistent  ill-fortune 
we  had  won  to  port  at  last.  At  five  minutes  past  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  we  drove  up  to  the  house  on  the 
hillside  where  a  temporary  government  had  been  established. 
We  had  made  from  Chambersburg  to  Johnstown  in  exactly 
twenty-four  hours — driving,  walking,  wading,  and  slipping. 
I  am  still  of  the  impression  that  all  things  considered  this 
showed  a  fair  rate  of  speed  and  the  diligence  in  per- 
formance of  an  assignment  that  in  my  time  was  always 
commended  to  beginners. 

We  were  wet  to  the  skin,  covered  with  mud,  and  dog 
tired,  but  so  strange  are  the  ways  of  the  human  mind  that 
every  sense  of  discomfort  vanished  at  the  almost  incredible 
news  that  awaited  us.  In  spite  of  our  wanderings,  blunder- 
ings,  and  so  many  misadventures,  we  were  the  first  reporters 
from  the  East  to  reach  Johnstown.  The  Pittsburg  men 
were  there  in  force,  but  nobody  had  yet  arrived  from  New 
York  or  Philadelphia. 

Telegraph  wires  had  been  stretched  across  the  hills,  a 
shed  on  the  hillside  was  turned  into  a  telegraph  office, 
operators  were  already  at  work,  and  we  began  to  file  copy. 
At  half-past  seven,  going  forth  in  search  of  food,  we  had 
the  singular  felicity  of  welcoming  the  Philadelphia  men 
with  whom  we  had  raced  from  Chambersburg.  We  had 
beaten  them  by  more  than  five  hours. 

161 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

Of  the  story  of  the  great  flood  I  need  rehearse  little 
here.  The  world  has  not  forgotten  how  an  association 
of  eminent  gentlemen  maintained  a  dam  across  a  river  for 
the  reasonable  purpose  of  providing  them  with  the  sport 
of  fishing;  how  at  a  time  of  widespread  floods,  this  dam 
gave  way;  how  the  sea  of  water  thus  released  rushed  down 
the  valley  sweeping  away  everything  in  its  path;  and  how 
seven  towns  and  villages  were  thus  without  warning  stricken 
with  destruction.  Johnstown,  the  largest  of  the  seven,  was 
built  chiefly  on  flat  land  at  the  meeting  of  the  rivers; 
and  the  flood  hurled  over  this  flat  land  the  accumulated 
wreckage  of  the  valley.  Below  the  town  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  had  obstructed  the  channel  with  a  stone  bridge 
and  the  Cambria  Iron  Works  with  mountains  of  furnace 
slag.  Against  these  obstructions  gathered  a  vast  raft  of 
floating  houses  brought  down  by  the  flood;  this  raft  now 
caught  fire  and  hundreds  of  victims  that  had  escaped  drown- 
ing and  were  still  imprisoned  in  their  dwellings  were  burned 
to  death,  the  sound  of  their  shrieks  being  heard  even  above 
the  roar  of  the  waters.  I  hope,  also,  some  memory  still 
clings  of  the  world's  open-handed  response  to  the  emergency, 
the  great  relief  fund  that  came  from  all  parts  of  the  earth, 
and  the  disposition  made  of  that  fund  so  that  those  that 
were  rich  might  be  richer  and  those  that  were  poor  might 
have  but  a  pittance.  If  these  things  have  faded  from  the 
minds  of  men,  surely  there  has  been  lost  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  of  stories :  and  one  of  the  sharpest  of  lessons, 
also,  one  may  say.  For  what  could  more  reasonably  move 
us  to  reflection  than  a  great  disaster  that  was  caused  by 
selfishness,  profits,  and  greed  and  that  greed  turned  then 
to  its  own  advantage? 

These  things,  I  am  sure,  need  no  comment.  But  of  some 
of  my  impressions  I  may  properly  speak.     The  first  of 

162 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

these  was  of  the  tremendous  and  (by  me)  previously  unsus- 
pected power  of  waters  let  loose.  Where  the  raft  of 
floating  houses  had  burned  was  now  a  great  black  plain 
covered  deeply  with  an  amazing  collection  of  the  ruined 
works  of  man's  hands.  In  the  seven  towns  that  contributed 
to  this  mass  nearly  all  the  buildings,  including  the  stores, 
had  been  of  wood,  so  that  everything  bought  and  sold  in  the 
valley  had  been  floated  to  this  spot  and  was  now  left  bare  for 
deliberate  inspection.  In  one  place  you  would  note  the  re- 
mains of  a  crockery  store,  next  to  it  of  a  hardware  store ;  then 
a  dry  goods  store;  then  a  billiard  saloon  rested  next  to  a 
church,  may  be,  and  what  looked  like  a  grocery  store  was 
mixed  with  a  foundry.  All  these  were  massed  together  and 
only  distinguishable  by  their  heaps  of  partly  destroyed  con- 
tents, for  everything  above  the  ground  floors  had  been  burned 
over.  I  counted  more  than  twenty  pianos  projecting  from 
the  strange  conglomerate — the  intimate  household  gods 
disjected  ruthlessly  before  alien  eyes.  In  one  place  were 
rolls  of  woolen  cloth,  still  in  order,  and  but  partly  burned, 
showing  where  had  been  a  tailor  shop  of  some  pretensions; 
three  barber's  chairs  stood  upright  and  in  due  position  while 
in  front  of  each  were  moldering  indications  of  a  mirror,  and 
below  were  shaving  mugs  and  razors.  But  far  more  ex- 
traordinary than  all  this  were  the  great  boilers,  iron  smoke- 
stacks, parts  of  great  machines,  coils  of  wire,  freight  cars, 
railroad  track  with  the  ties  still  attached,  and  wreckage 
from  the  iron  mills  that  were  scattered  all  about.  Between 
the  upper  limits  of  the  town  and  the  stone  bridge  were 
three  locomotives,  swept  far  from  the  tracks  upon  which 
they  had  been  traveling  when  the  flood  overtook  them  and 
the  very  tracks  vanished  with  the  trains  they  had  borne. 
Nothing  seemed  able  to  withstand  a  power  so  great;  and 
looking  with  awe  at  these  wonders  we  could  begin  to  see 

163 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

why  the  sites  of  so  many  towns  were  swept  to  their  founda- 
tion stones,  and  could  understand  the  death  totals,  the 
mounting  figures  of  which  were  astounding  the  world. 

Of  the  terrible  things  concealed  in  that  black  waste  and 
how  we  saw  them  laid  bare  and  often  assisted  in  the  dis- 
coveries, I  shall  not  speak  here,  more  than  to  say  that 
probably  nowhere  outside  of  a  battlefield  and  not  always 
there  would  such  sights  assail  one.  The  improvised  morgues 
were  quickly  overcrowded;  others  of  the  remaining  build- 
ings on  the  hillside  must  be  pressed  into  service;  and  the 
survivors  that  went  searching  from  one  black  ruin  to  another 
soon  became  a  heart-breaking  spectacle.  One  may  judge 
somewhat  of  the  significance  of  the  event  when  one  re- 
members that  the  population  of  Johnstown  had  been  about 
15,000  and  that  more  than  2,000  victims  of  the  flood  rest 
in  the  cemetery  on  the  hillside.  All  the  first  estimates  of 
the  loss  of  life  were  strangely  inadequate;  an  error  that 
seldom  happens  in  newspaper  experience. 

The  first  view  of  the  place  was  assuredly  the  worst;  the 
rain  fell  heavily,  the  site  of  the  vanished  part  of  the  town 
was  buried  under  two  feet  of  sticky  yellow  mud,  the  black 
clouds  hung  to  the  hills,  and  before  the  temporary  relief 
headquarters  stood  in  the  rain  a  long  line  of  stricken  sur- 
vivors, waiting  for  food,  perhaps  four  hundred  of  them, 
stretching  far  along  in  the  mud.  I  could  but  notice  how 
most  of  these  were  the  new-made  widows  or  orphans  of 
underpaid  workers  in  the  iron  mills  and  were  now  left 
without  a  roof  or  a  crust  or  more  rags  than  they  stood  in. 
The  question  of  food  was  acute;  only  one  grocery  store 
had  escaped  the  flood  and  when  we  reached  it  that  after- 
noon it  had  been  emptied  of  everything  except  clothes  pins 
and  mop-handles.  Thousands  of  mouths  to  be  fed,  and  at 
first  was  nothing  to  feed  them  with.     Then  the  people  in 

164 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

the  surrounding  towns  began  to  understand  the  situation 
and  from  all  directions  men  trudged  in  bearing  baskets 
of  food.  Housewives  stood  at  their  ovens  day  and  night 
baking  bread  and  men  and  boys  waded  muddy  miles  to  carry 
it  to  the  afflicted  place.  At  first  no  railroad  connection 
was  to  be  had  in  any  direction  nearer  than  five  miles.  Rap- 
idly the  destroyed  track  to  the  west  was  replaced  and 
generous  Pittsburg  took  up  the  work  of  relief,  sending  in 
trains  of  supplies. 

Our  own  situation  was  at  first  rather  desperate.  Our 
supper  consisted  of  sandwiches  we  had  brought  with  us 
from  the  other  side  of  the  mountains;  for  lodgings,  since 
every  house  was  already  crowded  with  homeless  survivors, 
we  were  in  sore  straits  until  we  found  a  great  barn  that 
had  been  used  for  the  steel  company's  horses  and  still  had 
its  lofts  stuffed  with  hay  and  straw.  An  austere  Bohemian 
gentleman  whose  knowledge  of  English  was  confined  to  a 
few  numerals,  was  the  possessor  of  the  key  to  this  haven. 
To  him  we  must  resort,  shekels  in  hand.  After  admitting 
us  it  was  his  custom  to  relock  the  door  and  retire  to  his 
own  slumbers,  about  half  a  mile  distant.  Inasmuch  as 
there  was  but  the  one  door,  the  place  was  a  tinder-box  and 
yet  absolutely  dark  so  that  one  must  light  matches  to  find 
one's  way  about,  I  am  convinced  that  some  very  eminent 
journalists  narrowly  escaped  incineration  at  the  Hotel 
Boheme.  Yet  we  arrived  every  night  so  wet  and  dead  tired 
that  we  were  grateful  even  for  this  savage  shelter.  We 
found  that  if  we  crawled  into  the  straw  as  far  as  to  our 
necks  our  wet  bodies  dried  fairly  well  while  we  slept. 
There  was  no  chance  to  remove  any  clothing;  we  dropped 
into  the  straw  as  we  were,  and  by  this  time  the  robin's  egg 
overcoat,  which  I  wore  all  the  time,  was  become  of  one 
even  hue  of  western  Pennsylvania  mud. 

165 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

A  serious  drawback  to  life  at  the  Hotel  Boheme  was 
its  oversupply  of  rats,  whose  inconsiderate  habit  was  to 
run  over  our  faces  as  we  slept.  One  reporter,  a  later 
arrival,  a  sybaritic  person  that  rode  into  Johnstown  on  a 
railroad  train  demanding  a  thick  steak  with  baked  potatoes, 
was  sensitive  about  rats  and  made  violent  though  ineffectual 
protest.  Spurred  to  unwonted  activity,  he  discovered 
another  hostelry  in  the  town,  being  in  fact  a  brick  kiln  on 
the  hillside,  where  one  could  lie  on  a  plank  above  the  burn- 
ing bricks.  Having  been  induced  to  partake  once  of  this 
luxury,  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  it  is  not  to  be  commended, 
for  the  reason  that  while  one  side  of  your  person  is  roasted 
the  other  freezes,  and  the  combination  does  not  foster  that 
equable  temper  desirable  for  the  fullest  enjoyment  of  life. 

As  we  went  about  our  daily  tasks  the  mud  accumulated 
upon  our  clothing  until  we  were  from  head  to  foot  caked 
in  it;  whisps  of  hay  and  straw  clung  to  us  unnoticed;  and 
our  unshaven  faces  and  unkempt  locks  must  have  given 
us  a  savage  appearance.  None  of  us  had  changed  any 
article  of  his  attire  since  he  left  New  York.  I  know  that 
when  at  last  I  was  relieved,  and  just  two  weeks  after  I 
started  from  the  Herald  office  I  reached  the  Hotel  Duquesne 
in  Pittsburg,  the  head  porter  refused  me  admittance — an 
exclusion  for  which,  catching  a  glimpse  of  myself  in  a 
glass,  I  could  in  no  way  blame  him.  Two  of  the  reporters 
on  that  assignment  died  as  a  result  of  the  hardships  they 
endured,  and  I  had  more  than  one  reason  to  remember  the 
episode,  for  it  was  on  this  occasion  that  I  made  my 
first  acquaintance  with  rheumatism,  which  clingeth  closer 
than  a  brother. 

I  was  not  without  compensation,  nevertheless,  for  the 
experience  brought  me  a  singular  piece  of  good  fortune  so 
entirely  unmerited  I  feel  moved  to  set  it  down  at  length. 

166 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

After  the  first  few  days  Johnstown  swarmed  with  re- 
porters and  correspondents,  for  every  important  newspaper 
in  the  country  was  inspired  to  have  its  own  man  on  the 
scene.  The  telegraph  facilities  were  painfully  inadequate, 
being  a  few  wires  led  into  an  old  cement  shed  on  the 
hillside  where  a  meager  force  of  operators  toiled  day  and 
night  without  rest  at  the  steadily  mounting  piles  of  copy. 
The  result  was  that  many  good  stories  were  written  but 
few  got  into  print,  a  condition  that  was  torturing  many  a 
managing  editor  in  diverse  regions  of  our  fair  land. 

But  from  the  first  I  landed  my  own  stories  in  the  Herald 
office  with  reasonable  celerity  and  regularity,  though  the 
fact  was  purely  fortuitous.  The  gentleman  that  then  con- 
ducted the  affairs  of  the  Associated  Press  was  unwittingly 
my  benefactor  in  this.  It  happened  that  he  was  close  to 
Johnstown  when  the  flood  came.  Being  on  the  ground  he 
was  able  to  supervise  the  telegraph  facilities  and  he  insisted 
upon  a  wire  for  himself  to  the  Western  Union  building  in 
New  York  City,  and  upon  an  operator  for  his  exclusive  use. 
This  wire  he  led  not  into  the  old  cement  shed  but  into  an- 
other old  building  at  a  considerable  distance,  where  it  was 
kept  securely  hidden,  the  great  name  and  power  of  the 
Associated  Press  gaining  an  advantage  that  no  single  news- 
paper could  possibly  obtain. 

Soon  after  it  was  installed  the  manager  must  have  for- 
gotten about  its  existence,  for  he  did  not  use  it,  and  the 
operator  assigned  to  it  had  nothing  to  do.  Being  of  great 
goodness  of  heart  he  told  me  about  the  existence  of  this 
wire  and  offered  to  put  my  matter  through  over  it.  I  trust 
that  in  response  I  gave  him  enough  to  do. 

This  was  all  there  was  to  it,  but  the  fact  that  my  matter 
was  coming  through  all  right  began  to  attract  some  attention 
and  comment.     I  did  not  deem  my  duty  to  include  any 

167 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

revelations  about  the  secret  wire^  and^  indeed^  any  such  be- 
trayal of  confidence  would  have  been  ruinous  to  my  friend 
the  operator.  Consequently  it  was  assumed  that  I  had  won 
by  some  exercise  of  ingenuity  or  wit.  After  it  was  all 
over  the  New  York  Recorder  (a  journal  long  since  deceased^ 
but  then  of  good  standing)  published  a  column  article  en- 
titled "  How  Russell  Got  the  Wire  '*  which  purported  to 
show  that  by  an  ingenious  system  of  relays  and  signals  I 
was  able  to  get  my  matter  to  another  town  and  thus  to 
have  it  telegraphed.  I  hardly  need  to  say  that  this  was 
pure  fiction.  There  are  doubtless  excellent  reasons  why 
no  man  should  ever  accept  unmerited  praise,  but  to  unde- 
ceive the  Recorder  was  to  betray  one  that  had  befriended 
and  trusted  me,  and  to  betray  him  in  a  point  vital  to  him; 
for  if  his  part  in  the  matter  had  been  made  public  he  would 
have  lost  his  employment. 

And  here  I  am  moved  to  set  down  a  few  plain  facts  upon 
the  nature  of  my  own  activities  that  afford  so  excellent 
an  illustration  of  the  system  under  which  we  live.  I  was 
not,  in  truth,  hired  to  be  just  nor  to  deal  candidly;  in  one 
sense  I  was  not  even  hired  to  lay  before  the  public  the 
facts  of  the  great  disaster  at  Johnstown.  I  was  hired  to 
outwit  my  fellow-workers,  to  surpass  them  in  cunning  and 
adroitness,  to  secure  something  they  did  not  secure;  by 
whatsoever  means,  I  must  do  this,  and  having  done  it  by 
whatsoever  means,  I  had  but  done  my  allotted  duty.  I 
was  to  do  this  that  the  proprietor  of  the  newspaper  might 
have  the  exclusive  sale  of  a  merchantable  commodity  and 
thereby  increase  his  profits,  and  for  no  other  reason.  In 
my  time  this  transaction  was  covered  by  a  glamor  of  tradi- 
tion and  romance,  so  that  none  of  us  that  served  perceived 
much  of  its  real  nature.  To  win  a  "  beat  *'  was  to  win 
professional  fame  and  distinction;  that  way  tended  the  am- 

168 


The  Rocky  Road  to  Johnstown 

bition  of  every  reporter.  In  later  years  the  alluring  fiction 
has  been  stripped  from  much  of  the  operation;  it  has  come 
to  be  regarded  in  its  true  aspect  of  commercialism;  and  if 
it  seem  now  less  attractive  at  least  it  is  without  pretense. 
We  publish  newspapers  now  to  make  money  and  not  to 
serve  God  nor  to  benefit  humanity  nor  to  right  wrongs. 

Under  the  conditions  the  most  I  could  do  was  to  protest 
that  the  Recorder's  account  was  untrue  and  the  manner  of 
the  trick  was  quite  simple  and  without  merit.  Nevertheless, 
I  found  myself  elevated  to  a  place  in  the  Journalistic 
Academy.  In  the  early  days  of  my  newspaper  experience 
I  had  heard  men  speak  respectfully  of  certain  reporters 
as  being  of  the  "  ten  best  '*  in  New  York.  A  little  investi- 
gation and  comparison  would  have  shown  that  the  number 
they  had  in  mind  was  really  larger  than  ten,  but  I  have 
found  that  in  these  agreeable  matters  we  are  not  prone  to 
be  too  exacting.  To  be  classed  as  **  one  of  the  ten  best 
reporters  in  New  York  "  was  an  honor  that  had  always 
seemed  to  me  too  dazzling  for  attainment,  and  after  the 
wire  exploit  when  once  I  overheard  myself  so  described  (by 
a  gentleman,  it  is  true,  far  gone  in  his  cups)  the  side  of 
human  nature  that  is  all  vanity  overcrowed  the  other  side 
that  would  seriously  question  the  undiscoverable  grounds  of 
such  a  distinction.  As  Captain  Nares,  that  eminent  philoso- 
pher, once  sagely  remarked :  "  We  are  a  queer  kind  of 
beast." 

Such  was  this  so-called  success.  I  have  since  had  occa- 
sion to  wonder  if,  infinitesimal  as  it  was,  it  did  not  repre- 
sent a  microcosm  of  the  world,  and  if  what  we  deem  the 
great  successes  even  of  important  men  were  not  gained 
in  a  manner  as  little  beyond  their  control.  Nothing  I  my- 
self have  observed  of  such  men  and  their  actions  would 
in  any  way  conflict  with  such  a  theory. 

169 


THE  MYSTERY  THAT  HAD  NO  ENDING 

We  had  some  grisly  stories  in  New  York  that  winter 
of  1890-91.  The  first  was  a  rather  remarkable  case  long 
known  among  us  as  "  the  Getty  House  suicide.'*  On  the 
last  day  of  October  an  old  man  of  respectable  appearance 
entered  the  Getty  House^  a  hotel  at  Yonkers^  registered  as 
George  Smith,  and  retired.  The  next  morning  he  was 
found  dead  in  his  bed  from  morphine,,  an  emptied  bottle 
of  which  lay  on  the  dresser.  He  had  burned  some  papers 
before  he  took  the  poison  and  had  cut  from  his  clothes  and 
his  hat  band  what  were  assumed  to  be  the  initials  that 
might  have  identified  him.  Evidently  then  his  name  was 
not  Smith  and  he  had  a  reason  for  concealment.  His 
appearance  indicated  that  he  had  some  station  in  life  and 
the  newspapers  undertook  eagerly  the  task  of  unraveling 
his  mystery.  Days  of  effort  produced  nothing;  although 
the  man's  description  was  widely  published  and  his  body 
lay  many  days  in  the  morgue  it  was  never  identified  and 
the  old  man's  secret,  whatever  it  was,  went  to  the  grave 
with  him. 

Newspaper  life  in  New  York  is  a  succession  of  events 
to-day  of  absorbing  interest  and  to-morrow  forcibly  dis- 
possessed from  the  mind  by  something  else.  The  Getty 
House  suicide  was  a  good  story  so  long  as  it  lasted  but  it 
had  already  faded  from  our  memories  when  it  was  recalled 
by  a  strange  analogue.    Soon  after  midnight  on  the  morn- 

170 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

ing  of  February  S,  a  young  man  entered  the  old  Astor 
House^  the  last  remaining  downtown  hotel  in  New  York, 
registered  as  Fred  Evans,  London,  and  asked  for  a  room. 
As  he  was  without  baggage  he  complied  with  a  familiar 
regulation  and  paid  in  advance.  The  next  morning  his  body 
was  found  dead  on  the  floor  of  the  room.  Over  the  wash- 
bowl, which  he  had  placed  before  the  grate,  he  had  cut 
his  throat. 

Here,  too,  it  was  evident  that  Fred  Evans  was  an  as- 
sumed name,  for  the  young  man,  following  the  example 
of  the  old  man  at  the  Getty  House,  had  burned  papers 
and  letters  in  the  grate  and  had  cut  from  his  hat,  his  shirt, 
his  collar,  and  even  his  cuffs,  the  initials  that  might  lead 
to  his  identification.  As  he  likewise  was  of  respectable 
appearance  and  well  dressed  these  facts  and  the  coincidence 
aroused  a  lively  interest  and  for  several  days  "  The  Astor 
House  suicide  "  had  due  attention  from  all  of  us.  In  this 
case  as  the  other,  none  of  us  made  any  headway  with  it. 
The  description  of  Fred  Evans  was  widely  published,  the 
body  lay  the  usual  number  of  days  in  the  morgue,  and 
went  thence  to  the  Potter's  Field  with  its  story  unrevealed, 
and  **  the  Astor  House  suicide  '*  took  its  place  among  the 
mysteries  of  New  York. 

The  Astor  House  is  about  a  mile  from  the  lower  end 
of  Manhattan  Island.  The  Getty  House  is  fifteen  miles 
north  of  it;  the  next  mysterious  story  developed  fifteen 
miles  south  of  it.  Tottenville  is  a  quiet  little  town  on  the 
further  side  of  Staten  Island,  facing  the  Arthur  Kill,  and 
beyond  that,  the  coal  port  of  Perth  Amboy,  New  Jersey. 
In  those  days  the  Arthur  Kill,  because  of  its  security  and 
remoteness,  was  something  of  a  winter  harbor  for  coasting 
schooners.  One  of  them  from  Kennebunkport,  in  Maine, 
was  laid  up  that  winter  about  three  hundred  yards  below 

171 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

the  slip  or  landing  place  of  the  ferry  that  plies  be- 
tween Tottenville  and  Perth  Amboy.  The  mate^  a  fine 
young  Maine  man  of  the  Deer  Island  type^  was  left  in 
charge. 

On  an  afternoon  in  early  March  when  the  wind  had  been 
blowing  hard  all  day  and  the  white  caps  had  been  running 
in  the  little  Kill  this  mate  sat  on  the  after  rail  smoking 
his  pipe  and  looking  at  the  water.  Of  a  sudden  there 
drifted  into  his  vision  in  the  very  spot  he  was  staring  at 
the  upturned  face  of  a  dead  man. 

You  cannot  easily  startle  the  seafaring  tribe  of  Maine. 
The  mate  sprang  for  a  boat  hook^  made  the  body  fast, 
and  then  went  ashore  and  notified  the  local  police.  At 
the  undertaker's  shop  to  which  the  body  was  removed, 
even  the  Maine  man  no  less  than  the  police  was  astonished. 
With  the  mud  washed  from  the  clothing  there  lay  before 
them  the  corpse  of  a  man  of  extremely  powerful  build  with 
his  arms  tied  behind  him  at  the  wrists  and  again  at  the 
elbows  with  a  stout  cord  skillfully  and  carefully  knotted. 
He  must  have  been  in  life  handsome  as  well  as  athletic; 
the  excellent  and  regular  features  were  set  off  with  a  well- 
trimmed  dark  mustache,  the  eyes  were  blue,  the  teeth  well 
kept  and  regular,  the  clothes  of  an  excellent  material 
although  of  a  foreign  cut. 

Examining  the  teeth  and  holding  the  mouth  open  for  that 
purpose  one  of  the  policemen  uttered  a  sudden  exclamation. 
The  others  looked  where  he  pointed.  Something  white  was 
in  the  mouth,  a  piece  of  white  cloth.  With  some  difficulty 
they  pulled  it  out.  It  was  a  white  handkerchief,  one  end 
of  whieh  had  been  thrust  far  down  the  man's  throat.  So 
plainly  here  was  murder.  The  man's  hands  had  been  tied 
behind  his  back,  the  handkerchief  had  stifled  his  cries,  he 
had  been  thrown  into  the  water  to  drown. 

172 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

But  what  for?  Not  for  robbery,  apparently.  At  least 
the  gold  watch  and  plated  chain  were  there,  the  man's 
pockets  had  not  been  rifled,  keys  and  trinkets  were  in  them, 
his  wallet  and  many  papers  seemed  intact  in  the  black 
frock  coat.  Not  murder  for  robbery;  yet  murder,  surely, 
for  some  other  motive.  What  about  the  papers  then?  One 
was  a  German  passport  and  quickly  identified  the  dead 
man.  Carl  Emil  Riittinger,  of  Dresden,  thirty-eight  years 
old,  it  read.  By  occupation,  a  merchant;  married.  So  it 
went,  and  the  descriptive  parts  left  no  doubt  that  this  corpse 
was  Riittinger.  The  other  papers  seemed  chiefly  to  be 
fragments  and  memoranda,  and  an  unused  ticket  on  the 
Staten  Island  Railroad. 

So  the  next  morning  we  publish  all  these  facts  and  in- 
quire if  anybody  knows  Carl  Emil  Riittinger,  of  Dresden, 
merchant.  Before  noon  there  come  to  the  undertaker's 
shop  at  Tottenville  two  men  that  we  know  well  enough  to 
be  detectives  from  the  staff  of  Inspector  Byrnes.  Anywhere 
we  should  know  them,  even  if  we  had  not  seen  them  before ; 
know  them  by  their  short-clipped  mustaches  and  a  certain 
mark  they  bear  invisible  to  all  except  criminals  and  re- 
porters; and  know  them  also  by  an  instinctive  freemasonry 
that  exists  between  their  craft  and  ours.  They  have  with 
them  Mr.  Gustave  Neu,  gray-mustached,  well  mannered,  a 
German,  keeper  of  a  respectable  boarding-house  in  East 
Fifty-eighth  Street.  He  takes  but  one  look  at  the  body 
lying  there  in  the  back  room  and  identifies  it. 

"  That  is  the  man,'*  he  says.  "  That  is  Riittinger." 
Then  he  tells  us  this  story: 

Just  before  the  first  of  the  year,  he  says,  one  day,  maybe 
a  few  days  before  New  Year's  Day,  there  came  to  his  house 
this  man,  Carl  Emil  Riittinger,  and  his  brother-in-law,  and 
requested  board  and  lodging. 

173 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

"His  brother-in-law?'*  we  ask  in  one  breath.  "Who 
was  his  brother-in-law?     Also  a  German?** 

No^  it  appears  that  his  brother-in-law  was  not  German. 
Riittinger  was  a  German  that  spoke  English  fluently,  but 
the  brother-in-law  was  an  Englishman  named  George 
Wright.  They  had  taken  a  room  together  and  remained 
at  his  house  until  January  27  or  28 — four  weeks  he  should 
say,  maybe  five.  Then  they  had  told  him  they  were  going 
to  Boston  and  had  paid  their  bill  and  departed  and  he  had 
seen  neither  of  them  again  until  here  he  saw  Riittinger  lying 
dead. 

**  What  kind  of  a  person  was  this  Wright  ?  Tall,  strong, 
powerfully  built  like  his  brother-in-law  ?  *' 

No,  it  appeared  that  on  the  contrary  Wright  was  almost 
conspicuously  small  and  slender.  He  was  young;  not  more 
than  twenty-three,  Mr.  Neu  should  say;  and  he  had  rather 
wondered  at  the  disparity  in  the  ages  of  the  two  com- 
panions. Yet  they  were  inseparable  and  the  best  of  friends, 
though  he  recalled  that  they  were  apparently  of  very  differ- 
ent temperaments.  Riittinger  was  cordial,  sanguine,  courte- 
ous, and  made  on  all  that  met  him  a  favorable  impression; 
Wright  so  reserved  that  the  boarders  uttered  small  jests 
upon  him  as  exhibiting  national  characteristics.  Yet  even 
Riittinger  had  little  to  say  about  himself  or  his  affairs. 
He  told  Mr.  Neu  that  until  lately  he  had  been  in  the  lace 
trade  in  Dresden,  that  he  had  failed  there,  and  that  he 
and  his  brother-in-law  had  newly  come  to  America  to  look 
for  an  opening  in  business.  Mr.  Neu  recalled  that  they 
had  crossed  on  the  Inman  liner  City  of  Chicago,  traveling 
second-class.  Every  day,  he  said,  the  two  went  out,  appar- 
ently to  look  for  the  business  opening  they  wanted.  When 
at  last  they  had  left  his  house  Riittinger  had  told  Mr.  Neu 
that  they  had  found  in  Boston  the  opportunity  they  desired. 

174 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

And  since  then  he  had  heard  nothing  of  them  nor  of  either 
of  them  until  this  that  you  see  before  you,  not  one  word. 
They  had  not  written,  they  had  not  returned.  Their  fellow- 
boarders  had  heard  nothing.  He  had  made  a  point  of 
asking  that  morning  when  he  read  of  this  in  his  newspaper. 
Nothing. 

Where  then  is  Wright?  Upon  that  question  evidently 
must  turn  the  mystery.  His  companion  murdered  and  he 
thus  disappearing  at  about  the  same  time — plainly  the 
most  suspicious  circumstance.  He  is  the  murderer;  he 
killed  his  companion  and  fled.  We  start  at  once  upon  the 
slender  trail;  Mr.  Neu  repeats  with  particularity  all  of 
his  story;  the  boarders  are  found  and  interviewed;  the 
police  take  up  the  search  in  every  corner  of  the  country. 
As  fast  as  the  mails  can  carry  the  information  thousands 
of  eyes  in  many  communities  are  set  at  work  searching 
for  this  young  man.  The  singularity  of  the  story  attracts 
national  attention  and  brings  unusual  help  to  the  hunt. 
We  have  no  picture  of  Wright  but  fortunately  Mr.  Neu 
and  the  boarders  furnish  a  minute  description.  Age  about 
23,  height  about  5  feet  2  inches;  slenderly  built;  com- 
plexion light,  eyes  light  blue,  hair  a  light  sandy;  features 
regular  but  small;  head  small,  hands  noticeably  small; 
lips  thin;  very  little  color  in  the  face;  ears  large  and  pro- 
jecting somewhat  from  the  head;  of  a  shy  and  reserved 
manner  and  marked  English  accent  when  he  speaks ;  would 
probably  be  noticed  anywhere  in  this  country  because  of 
his  accent;  clothes  not  distinctive;  when  he  left  the  board- 
ing house  he  wore  a  light  brown  suit  of  English  make. 

Within  a  week  this  description  is  in  every  police  head- 
quarters in  the  United  States  and  Canada.  In  less  than  a 
week  (as  usually  happens  in  such  cases)  zealous  detectives 
and  the  rural  police  begin  to  discover  the  missing  man  and 

175 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

from  several  newspaper  offices  in  New  York  reporters  are 
traveling  to  remote  regions  on  promising  clews.  But  they 
do  not  find  Wright. 

Meantime  (to  show  the  vast  net  of  information  that  a 
modern  newspaper  can  instantly  pull  to  shore)  correspon- 
dents and  reporters  of  ours  in  Dresden  and  England  set 
to  work  a  few  hours  after  the  discovery  of  the  body,  pick- 
ing up  ends  of  the  story.  In  Dresden  they  found  that 
RUttinger's  account  of  himself  to  Mr.  Neu  was  practically 
correct.  He  had  been  born  in  Stuttgart,  where  his  mother 
still  lived,  but  for  some  years  he  had  been  a  lace  mer- 
chant in  Dresden.  About  1888,  while  on  a  holiday  tour  in 
Italy,  he  met  Miss  Madge  Wright,  of  Colmebeck,  England, 
and  almost  on  the  spot  he  married  her.  They  went  to  live 
in  Dresden;  Mrs.  Riittinger's  young  brother,  George,  lived 
with  them.  From  the  beginning  it  seems  not  to  have  been 
a  happy  household.  After  a  year  Mrs.  Riittinger  quarreled 
with  her  husband  and  returned  to  her  parents  in  England. 
Strange  to  say  her  brother  sided  with  Riittinger  in  the 
disagreement  and  continued  to  live  with  him  after  his  sister 
had  departed  in  dudgeon.  Riittinger 's  business  went  on 
but  badly  and  in  the  fall  of  1890  he  was  adjudged  a  bank- 
rupt. About  the  second  week  in  December  he  secured  a 
passport  in  Dresden  and  with  his  brother-in-law  started 
for  America. 

All  this  seemed  perfectly  clear,  but  the  reports  from 
England  rather  puzzled  and  disconcerted  us.  My  own  idea 
had  been  that  Wright  after  the  murder  had  made  his  way 
either  to  Canada  or  to  England;  I  felt  sure  that  the  im- 
pulse of  an  Englishman  of  his  type  would  be  to  get  away 
from  an  alien  country.  Yet  it  appeared  that  there  was  no 
trace  of  him  at  or  around  his  old  home,  the  police  in  the 
seaports  could  not  learn  of  his  arrival,  and  so  far  as  could 

176 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

be  judged  his  relatives  had  received  no  letter  from  him. 
About  this  there  was  something  baffling  and  mysterious. 
The  English  reporters  assigned  to  that  end  of  the  story 
did  poor  work  on  it,  but  even  allowing  for  their  incom- 
petence the  information  seemed  both  strangely  meager  and 
out  of  joint.  According  to  our  correspondent  Mrs.  Riittin- 
ger  seemed  not  greatly  distressed  by  the  news  of  her  hus- 
band's death  and  manifested  little  concern  about  the  where- 
abouts of  her  brother,  and  for  this  strange  fact  (if  it  were 
a  fact)  no  explanation  was  offered.  But  at  least  it  seemed 
probable,  after  a  few  days  of  search,  that  Wright  was  not 
in  England. 

I  concluded,  therefore,  that  my  first  impression  had  been 
wrong.  The  young  man  might  still  be  in  hiding  some- 
where in  the  United  States,  and  we  renewed  the  active 
search  for  him  here.  In  all  he  was  discovered  more  than 
two  hundred  times  all  the  way  from  Vineland,  in  the  path- 
less wilds  of  southern  New  Jersey,  to  Medicine  Hat  in 
northwestern  Canada.  Every  time  a  strange  young  man 
appeared  anywhere  the  telegraph  wires  grew  hot  and  Old 
Sleuth  started  upon  the  trail.  I  will  give  a  specimen  of 
one  of  these  delightful  incidents.  Our  correspondent  in 
Concord,  New  Hampshire,  wired  us  one  night  that  Wright 
had  been  caught  in  a  town  in  his  state  named  Lisbon,  if 
my  memory  serves  me  right.  The  fugitive  had  appeared 
at  the  hotel,  registered  under  some  such  name  as  Thomas 
Caldwell,  and  was  still  loafing  about  the  neighborhood. 
We  promptly  wired  this  correspondent,  who  was  a  good 
man,  to  keep  cool  and  get  all  the  definite  information  he 
could.  In  a  few  hours  he  responded  with  the  news  that  the 
identification  was  perfect — age,  height,  complexion,  eyes, 
ears,  English  accent.  Moreover,  he  seemed  to  be  very  ner- 
vous, read  the  New  York  papers  eagerly  every  day,  and 

177 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

was  heard  at  night  walking  about  his  room  and  muttering 
to  himself. 

My  city  editor  asked  me  if  I  thought  there  was  anything 
in  the  information.  I  said  I  did  not.  I  could  give  no 
very  definite  reason,  but  somehow  it  seemed  highly  im- 
probable. To  be  on  the  safe  side  the  city  editor  sent  a 
man  to  Lisbon.  He  found  that  the  suspected  person  was  a 
traveling  man  for  a  Boston  hardware  house  who  was  getting 
over  a  spree.  He  was  forty-five  years  old,  weighed  more 
than  two  hundred  pounds,  and  was  bald  as  an  egg.  No 
man  that  ever  ate  fish  chowder  could  possibly  mistake  his 
accent.     It  was  pure  Cape  Cod. 

This  reminds  me  of  an  incident  that  suddenly  projected 
itself  upon  this  stage  of  the  search  to  vary  the  drama  with 
a  touch  of  comedy  not  unworthy  of  an  Elizabethan.  Among 
the  many  newspapers  that  had  taken  a  vivid  interest  in 
the  story  was  one  in  Boston  that  I  will  call  the  Daily 
Scream,  It  was  the  policy  of  this  valuable  publication  to 
turn  up  every  day  with  what  was  known  in  Boston  as  a 
"  shocker  " — being  something  different  from  other  papers 
and  about  four  times  louder.  In  the  pursuit  of  this  laudable 
purpose  the  Scream  had  taken  up  such  of  the  Wrights  as 
had  been  discovered  in  New  England,  and  at  last  had 
succeeded  in  finding  the  man  hiding  in  the  woods  back  of 
Penobscot.  Having  made  sure  of  its  quarry  the  Scream 
naturally  desired  to  make  the  most  of  its  capable  work. 
It  therefore  dispatched  one  of  its  young  men  to  New  York 
to  see  Police  Inspector  Byrnes  and  request  him  to  send 
officers  with  the  Scream's  reporters  and  arrest  the  fugi- 
tive. 

At  that  time  the  Scream  and  the  New  York  Herald  were 
bound  by  a  news  trading  arrangement  under  which  the 
Herald  gave  its  proofs  to  the  Scream's  New  York  cor- 

178 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

respondent  and  the  Scream  afforded  the  like  facility  to  the 
Herald's  Boston  man.  For  this  reason  and  possibly  one 
of  discretion  also,  the  Scream's  young  man  came  to  the 
Herald  office  and  explained  his  errand  before  he  should 
call  upon  the  Inspector.  At  the  Herald  office,  as  I  was  in 
charge  of  the  story,  the  young  man  was  referred  to.  me. 

I  had  reason  to  know  that  Byrnes  was  deeply  interested 
in  the  mystery,  which  was  of  the  kind  that  appealed  most  to 
his  extraordinary  mind,  and  I  also  knew  that  he  and  some 
of  his  best  men  had  quietly  done  much  work  upon  it.  He 
was  one  of  the  greatest  detective  geniuses  that  ever  lived 
but  had  his  own  peculiarities,  and  among  them  was  a  violent 
prejudice  against  any  interference  with  his  work.  I  deemed 
it  wisdom,  therefore,  to  consult  him  before  I  produced  the 
nice  young  man  from  Boston  and  from  the  Inspector's 
manner  when  he  heard  the  news  I  judged  that  the  nice 
young  man  was  likely  to  have  an  interesting  time  that 
evening. 

I  made  an  engagement  for  eight  o'clock  and  after  dinner 
we  went  up  to  Byrnes's  handsome  house  in  West  Fifty- 
eighth  Street.  The  Inspector  himself  met  us  at  the  front 
door ;  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  as  was  his  wont  of  an  easy  evening 
at  home.  Hardly  waiting  for  my  introduction  he  grasped 
the  young  man  warmly  by  the  hand  and  dragged  him  into 
the  parlor. 

**  From  the  Boston  Scream,"  he  was  saying.  "  I  know 
that  paper  well,  I  know  it  well !  Anything  I  can  do  at  any 
time  for  that  paper  I  am  only  too  glad  to  do — any  time, 
you  know,  my  dear  fellow,  any  time.  Sit  right  down  here 
before  the  fire  and  tell  me  what  I  can  do  for  you.  I  know 
your  paper  well.** 

**  Why,  Mr.  Inspector,"  began  the  young  man,  rather 
astonished  by  this  cordial  reception,  "  the  editor  of  the 

179 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

Scream  has  sent  me  to  give  you  confidentially  some  im- 
portant information." 

Byrnes  planted  his  chair  directly  in  front  of  the  young 
man^  sat  down  in  it,  and  regarded  him  with  an  expression 
of  the  utmost  amiability. 

''Good!"  he  said  heartily.  "Good!  Now  tell  me  all 
about  it — ^tell  me  aU  about  it.  Don't  be  afraid — ^you  can 
trust  Russell  here.     Tell  me  all  about  it." 

"  Why,  the  fact  is,  Mr.  Inspector,"  said  the  young  man, 
"the  Scream  has  found  Wright." 

"  Yes  ?  "  said  Byrnes,  beaming  paternally,  "  the  Scream 
has  found  Wright.     Good!    And  who  is  Wright?  " 

"  Why,  Wright,  you  know — ^Wright,  the  man  that  is 
wanted  in  the  Riittinger  case." 

"  Ah,  yes,"  said  Byrnes,  hitching  his  chair  a  little  closer 
and  looking  at  the  young  man  with  intense  interest,  "  the 
man  that  is  wanted  in  the — ah — what  did  you  say  was  the 
name  of  the  case  ?  " 

"  Why,  the  Eiittinger  case." 

"  Yes ;  and  what  is  the — ah — Riittinger  case  ?  " 

"  Why,  that  case  on  Staten  Island,  you  know ;  that 
murder." 

"  Murder !  "  cried  Byrnes,  giving  a  violent  start.  "  Mur- 
der !  God  bless  my  soul !  I  haven't  heard  about  this.  Tell 
me  all  about  it.  What  did  you  say  was  the  name  of  the 
case  again  }  " 

"  Why,  the  Riittinger  case." 

"  Ah,  yes.  The  Riittinger  case.  Now  you  just  tell  me 
all  about  it."  And  he  compelled  that  unfortunate  youth 
to  begin  at  the  beginning  and  recite  the  whole  story,  while 
Byrnes  sat  there  with  an  expression  of  rapt  and  child-like 
interest.  As  the  young  man  concluded  his  narrative  with 
an  account  of  the   discovery  in  the  woods  of  Penobscot 

180 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

Byrnes  rose  suddenly  and  grasped  the  young  man  by  the 
hand. 

**  That  is  the  most  interesting  story  I  have  ever  heard/* 
he  saidj  leading  the  youth  rapidly  to  the  front  door.  **  I 
can't  tell  you  how  much  I  am  obliged  to  you.  And  so  well 
told,  too.  A  most  interesting  story — most  interesting.  Tell 
your  editor  I  am  obliged  to  him  and  any  time — any  time, 
you  know,"  and  with  that  he  got  the  young  man  outside 
the  front  door,  which  he  promptly  closed. 

We  walked  in  silence  to  the  Elevated  Railroad  stairs. 
As  we  were  going  up  the  young  man  stopped  and  said : 

**  Do  you  know,  I  don't  think  Byrnes  is  half  as  big  a 
man  as  he  is  cracked  up  to  be  .'*  " 

I  said  that  was  very  likely  and  changed  the  subject. 
Coming  down  the  front  steps  of  the  house  I  had  glanced 
back  and  caught  through  the  curtains  a  glimpse  of  the 
Inspector.  He  was  standing  before  one  of  the  really  ex- 
cellent paintings  that  adorned  his  walls,  standing  there  look- 
ing at  it,  and  on  his  big  face  there  was  the  rare  suspicion 
of  a  smile.  Hence  I  concluded  that  possibly  the  chief  point 
wherein  the  popular  conception  erred  about  Byrnes  was  in 
respect  to  his  possession  of  a  fund  of  sardonic  humor. 

He  had  already  dug  deeper  into  the  case  than  any  of 
the  rest  of  us,  and  yet  even  he,  as  he  told  me  long  after- 
ward, was  bogged.  There  was  one  thing  he  wanted  par- 
ticularly to  know  about  Wright  and  to  that  end  he  had 
two  of  his  cleverest  men  out  every  night,  trying  to  trail 
the  youth  from  Mr.  Neu's  boarding  house,  and  never  suc- 
ceeding. 

Meanwhile,  the  rest  of  us  turned  to  and  fro  the  old 
material,  hoping  that  something  had  been  overlooked. 
Among  these  efforts  we  did  not  neglect  the  boarders,  and 
here  we  came  unexpectedly  upon  the  most  astonishing  dis- 

181 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

covery  of  all.  One  of  the  boarders  chanced  to  change  his 
room.  A  trunk  stood  against  the  wall.  Moving  it  his  eye 
fell  upon  a  photograph  that  had  slipped  behind  and  fallen 
to  the  floor.  He  picked  it  up  mechanically  and  was  pres- 
ently transfixed  with  wonder  and  interest.  He  had  forgotten 
all  about  it^  but  now  it  came  back  to  him.  On  a  certain 
Sunday  before  Riittinger  and  Wright  had  gone  to  Boston 
they  had  been  in  his  room,  and  Wright  had  shown  him  this 
photograph.  It  was  of  the  old  home  in  England,  a  neat 
English  country  house,  on  the  lawn  the  family  standing, 
and  among  them,  his  face  turned  squarely  to  the  light  and 
every  feature  clearly  revealed,  was  Wright  himself.  The 
boarder  remembered  that  after  exhibiting  the  photograph 
Wright  had  laid  it  upon  the  trunk,  where,  no  doubt,  it  had 
slipped  unobserved  to  the  floor. 

The  boarder  was  without  employment  on  that  day  and 
he  conceived  his  duty  to  lie  in  delivering  the  photograph 
with  the  utmost  diligence  to  the  District  Attorney  of  Rich- 
mond County  (Staten  Island),  who  was  supposed  to  be 
conducting  an  investigation  of  the  case.  A  few  hours  later 
a  group  of  us  stood  looking  at  the  picture  in  the  District 
Attorney's  office.  One  was  a  bright  young  reporter  from 
the  Evening  World.  He  examined  the  photograph  closely 
for  a  moment,  asked  some  casual  questions,  looked  indiffer- 
ently at  the  clock,  and  sauntered  to  the  door. 

"  Going  ?  '*  someone  asked. 

*'  Yep.  I  don't  see  much  to-day.  I  guess  I'll  go  down 
to  Tottenville." 

He  lingered  about  for  a  space,  shuffled  listlessly  around 
the  corner  out  of  sight,  and  then  shot  like  a  sprinter  for 
the  ferry.  He  would  not  even  trust  a  telephone  but  went 
himself  to  his  office.  In  another  hour  the  Evening  World 
was  on  the  streets  with  the  first  exclusive  news  that  had 

182 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

developed  in  the  story.     For  the  young  man  had  identified 
Wright  as  the  Astor  House  suicide. 

It  was  even  so.  Of  the  group  of  reporters  that  looked 
at  that  photograph  that  morning  in  the  District  Attorney's 
ofl5ce  the  Evening  World  man  alone  had  worked  on  the 
Astor  House  story  but  it  was  readily  demonstrated  that  his 
quick  eyes  had  not  deceived  him.  We  had  the  body  of 
the  Astor  House  suicide  brought  down  from  the  Potter's 
Field  and  Mr.  Neu  and  six  of  his  boarders  declared  at  once 
that  it  was  the  body  of  Wright.  While  the  police  of  three 
countries  had  been  searching  for  him  in  every  nook  and 
cranny  his  body  lay  cold  in  the  Potter's  Field. 

Of  all  the  strange  features  of  this  strange  story^  this  was 
the  strangest.  Riittinger  murdered  and  Wright  a  suicide! 
How  could  that  be?  After  murdering  his  friend  and 
comrade  did  Wright  in  remorse  kill  himself  .^^  Or  was  the 
murder  the  work  of  other  hands  and  Wright's  death  only 
a  coincidence  ?  Or  had  both  been  murdered  ?  Or  what  was 
the  answer  to  all  this  riddle? 

One  thing  at  least  was  clear:  we  must  determine  now 
what  space  of  time  elapsed  between  the  murder  and  the 
suicide,  if  Wright,  indeed,  had  killed  himself.  We  set  to 
work  upon  the  question,  and  hopeless  as  it  seemed,  within 
three  hours  had  it  definitely  determined.  How?  Why,  in 
a  way  that  seemed  to  us  then  too  simple  to  mention  but 
seems  to  me  now  rather  a  fair  piece  of  deductive  reasoning. 
Do  you  remember  that  among  the  contents  of  Riittinger 's 
pockets  was  a  ticket  on  the  Staten  Island  Railroad?  That 
bit  of  water-soaked  cardboard  an  inch  and  a  half  long  be- 
came now  our  best  possession.  It  was  the  unused  half  of 
a  round-trip  ticket  from  New  York  to  Tottenville  and  re- 
turn ;  someone  had  traveled  to  Tottenville  but  had  not  trav- 
eled back.     It  was  numbered  but  not  dated;  the  number, 

183 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

of  course,  being  one  in  a  consecutive  series.  We  found  that 
these  tickets  were  sold  from  a  reel  in  the  ticket  office  of 
the  ferry  house  in  New  York  and  that  to  keep  their  records 
straight  the  clerks  made  an  entry  when  they  went  on  duty 
and  when  they  departed,  of  the  first  number  on  the  reel 
of  unsold  tickets.  The  clerks  changed  watch  at  seven  o'clock 
in  the  evening.  By  looking  back  over  the  records  we  learned 
that  the  ticket  found  in  Riittinger*s  pocket,  say  No.  276,114, 
was  sold  on  February  2,  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening. 
Naturally  the  clerk  had  no  recollection*  of  selling  the  ticket, 
but  the  record,  as  he  showed,  was  indubitable.  The  number 
uppermost  when  he  came  on  duty  at  seven  o'clock  that  night 
was  276,063  and  he  usually  sold  about  fifty  tickets  in  the 
first  hour  of  the  evening  watch. 

An  analysis  had  been  made  of  the  contents  of  Riittinger's 
stomach,  for  some  of  us,  being  unable  to  account  for  the 
murder  of  so  powerful  a  man  as  Riittinger  by  a  creature 
so  puny  as  Wright,  had  surmised  that  drugs  had  been  used. 
The  analysis  revealed  no  trace  of  drugs  but  showed  a  fact 
equally  important  to  us  though  much  more  commonplace. 
The  last  meal  eaten  by  Riittinger  had  consisted  of  pickled 
herring,  sausage,  and  potato  salad.  Now  pickled  herring, 
sausage,  and  potato  salad  were  the  stable  menu  of  a  free 
luncheon  counter.  Near  the  ferry  house  and  on  the  route 
thither  were  several  gaudy  drinking  places  each  with  a  free 
luncheon  counter.  We  took  a  chance  shot,  interviewed  the 
bar-tenders,  and  at  last  found  one  that  remembered  a  visitor 
resembling  Riittinger.  He  remembered  him  for  two  reasons. 
The  big  man  had  a  companion,  the  bar-tender  said,  a  little 
weazened,  white-faced  youth,  that  talked  like  a  cockney. 
Now  the  bar-tender  was  Irish  and  soon  the  sound  of  the 
unwelcome  accent  in  his  hall  drew  his  notice  and  aroused 
his  bitter  mirth.     The  other  reason  was  that  both  of  the 

184 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

visitors  on  the  strength  of  one  glass  of  beer  ate  of  the  free 
luncheon  so  much  beyond  the  bounds  of  saloon  etiquette 
that  the  bar-tender  was  moved  to  protest. 

Here^  then,  were  the  facts  plain  enough.  RUttinger  and 
Wright  had  gone  to  Tottenville  together  about  eight  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  stopping  on  the  way  to  get  a  free  luncheon. 
Riittinger  had  been  killed ;  Wright  had  escaped.  But  what 
night  was  this.?  On  the  night  of  February  2.  And  when 
did  Wright  register  at  the  Astor  House  as  "  Fred  Evans, 
London  "  }  About  twelve  o'clock  on  that  same  night.  From 
Tottenville  to  the  Astor  House  is  close  upon  two  hours  if  a 
man  go  straight.  The  last  train  left  Tottenville  at  10:40. 
The  train  on  which  Riittinger  and  Wright  assumably  left 
New  York  arrived  at  Tottenville  at  9:30.  In  one  hour  and 
ten  minues,  therefore,  Riittinger  must  have  been  bound, 
gagged,  and  thrown  into  the  water  and  Wright  must  have 
started  on  his  return  to  New  York,  where  he  promptly  killed 
himself.  This  return  he  could  have  made  only  by  way  of 
the  Staten  Island  Railroad.  In  the  daytime  there  was  the 
ferry  to  Perth  Amboy,  but  this  ceased  to  be  operated  at 
eight  o'clock  in  the  evening.  It  was  rather  disappointing 
that  the  conductor  and  brakeman  of  the  train  could  not 
recall  a  passenger  of  Wright's  description;  but  of  the  fact 
of  the  journey  there  could  be  no  doubt.  Yet  observe  where 
this  left  us.  These  two  men,  for  a  long  time  inseparable 
companions,  start  away  in  the  evening  for  a  remote  and 
sleepy  village  of  which  they  know  nothing.  On  the  way 
they  stop  to  drink  beer  together.  Two  hours  later  one 
deliberately  and  coldly  murders  the  other  and  then  kills 
himself.  The  extreme  improbability  of  any  such  thing  re- 
vived in  some  of  us  the  notion  that  other  hands  might  have 
been  concerned;  that  Riittinger  might  have  been  lured  to 
his  death  at  Tottenville  and  Wright  murdered  in  the  Astor 

185 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

House.  An  examination  of  Wright*s  room  at  the  hotel  made 
a  quick  ending  of  this  supposition.  The  door  had  been 
found  locked  upon  the  inside  and  unless  the  murderer  were 
a  ghost  capable  of  squeezing  down  a  twelve-inch  chimney 
flue  there  was  no  other  means  of  ingress. 

But  how  about  this  other  part  revealed  by  the  bar-tender, 
this  ravenous  eating  of  the  stale  luncheon  of  a  poor  saloon.^ 
The  last  positive  information  we  had  of  them  showed 
Riittinger  and  Wright  paying  their  bill  at  a  high-priced 
boarding  house  and  departing  for  Boston.  Three  days  later 
they  turn  up  at  a  fourth-rate  boozing  ken  eating  vora- 
ciously of  garbage.  What  did  this  mean  and  where  had 
the  men  been  in  those  three  days? 

About  these  matters  we  could  get  no  light.  Meantime 
the  inquest  on  Riittinger *s  body  was  called  at  Tottenville 
and  we  all  went  to*  the  little  hotel  where  it  was  held,  dis- 
gusted with  our  failure  and  expecting  only  further  defeat. 
To  our  infinite  astonishment  an  entirely  new  chapter  of  the 
story  turned  up  from  an  unexpected  quarter.  Among  the 
witnesses  was  a  man  that  most  of  us  knew  well  enough  but 
had  never  dreamed  of  as  holding  any  part  of  this  mystery. 
He  was  an  old  Englishman,  the  keeper  of  a  lodging  house 
or  cheap  hotel  on  the  water  front  frequented  exclusively, 
I  think,  by  the  poorest  persons  of  his  own  nation — immi- 
grants and  the  like.  He  came  now  to  the  stand  and  in 
the  dullest  way  emitted  the  fact  that  he  knew  Riittinger  and 
Wright,  that  on  January  29  (the  day  they  left  Mr.  Neu's 
house)  they  had  come  to  his  place  and  taken  a  room  to- 
gether, and  that  Wright  (moved,  no  doubt,  by  racial  sym- 
pathy, to  unbosom  himself)  had  told  him  that  they  were 
in  desperate  straits  for  money.  Wright  said  that  all  the 
money  they  had  when  they  left  Germany  was  gone,  that 
they  had  been  unable  to  find  employment  or  a  business 

186 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

opening,  and  that  he  had  no  idea  what  they  should  do. 
The  lodging-house  keeper  tried  to  cheer  them  up,  telling 
them  they  need  not  doubt  of  finding  employment  and  that 
meantime  he  would  give  them  credit  for  their  lodging. 
February  2,  he  said,  they  spent  chiefly  in  their  room,  but 
about  seven  o'clock  they  went  out  and  did  not  return  and 
he  had  never  seen  either  of  them  alive  since,  although  it 
appeared  that  he  had  journeyed  to  Tottenville  and  privately 
identified  the  body  of  Riittinger. 

Neither  Inspector  Byrnes  nor  any  of  the  reporters  had 
any  foreknowledge  of  this  phase  of  the  story,  and  it  seemed 
strange  that  when  so  many  inquiries  were  rife  the  lodg- 
ing-house man  should  have  concealed  what  he  knew.  Ques- 
tioned on  this  point  he  said  that  in  his  country  all  such 
information  was  given  solely  to  the  coroner,  and  if  such  was 
not  the  custom  in  America  it  ought  toL  be.  Which  may  have 
been  his  real  reason  for  silence  or  may  not;  I  do  not  pretend 
to  say. 

But,  anyway,  assuming  the  man's  testimony  to  be  true, 
and  no  reason  appeared  to  doubt  it,  here  were  all  the  missing 
links  of  time  between  the  departure  of  Riittinger  and  Wright 
from  Mr.  Neu's  house  up  to  midnight  of  February  2,  when 
one  was  lying  dead  in  the  Arthur  Kills  and  the  other  in  the 
Astor  House.  They  did  not  go  to  Boston;  they  went  in- 
stead to  a  cheap  lodging-house  where  they  lived  in  destitu- 
tion until  they  started  for  Tottenville. 

Up  to  this  point  the  story  seemed  clear  and  beyond  this 
point  we  never  got — at  least  with  any  evidence  that  could 
be  called  satisfactory.  At  the  inquest  on  the  body  of  Wright 
a  very  strange  person  named  Perrin  H.  Sumner,  who  sub- 
sequently served  a  term  in  a  state  penitentiary,  made  an 
impudent  attempt  to  identify  the  young  man  as  one  James 
H.  Edgar  and  to  use  the  pretended  identification  in  some 

187 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

vast  scheme  of  fraud  that  he  was  then  engineering  or  trying 
to  engineer.  As  he  had  previously  tried  to  establish  the 
identity  of  the  Getty  House  suicide  as  the  father  of  James 
H.  Edgar^  this  new  chapter  in  his  romance  attracted  great 
attention  and  for  a  time  Sumner  held  the  center  of  the 
stage.  I  have  never  known  a  proceeding  more  barefaced. 
Sumner^  another  man,  and  a  peroxide  lady  took  the  stand 
and  swore  point  blank  that  Wright  was  Edgar.  So  positive, 
direct,  and  circumstantial  was  their  story  that  it  might  have 
been  believed  to  the  further  and  irremediable  tangling  of 
our  work  in  hand  if  Sumner  had  not  been  overwhelmed 
in  the  nick  of  time  with  a  complete  revelation  of  his  part 
in  the  fraud.  The  sole  credit  for  this  excellent  piece  of 
work  belongs  to  my  friend,  Isaac  D.  White  of  the  New 
York  World,  who,  all  in  all,  was  the  best  reporter  I  have 
known. 

Beyond  the  discovery  that  Riittinger  had  been  insured 
in  a  New  York  life  insurance  company  and  that  the  claim 
had  been  paid  to  his  mother  we  made  no  further  progress. 
But  long  afterward  I  came  across  an  old  number  of  an 
English  weekly  newspaper  and  turning  it  over  idly  I  fell 
upon  the  story  of  an  incident  that  somewhat  resembled  our 
mystery.  A  German  army  officer  that  had  been  ruined  by 
gambling  had  attempted  to  cheat  an  insurance  company  for 
the  benefit  of  his  creditors  by  committing  suicide  in  such  a 
way  that  it  would  be  thought  he  had  been  murdered.  His 
hands  had  been  so  bound  behind  his  back  as  to  give  him 
some  use  of  them.  He  had  then  with  a  revolver  shot  himself 
by  the  side  of  a  river  and  fallen  in.  The  revelation  came 
through  the  confession  of  his  servant,  who  had  been  his 
accomplice. 

I  looked  at  the  date  of  this  paper  and  found  it  had  been 
published  not  long  before  Riittinger  and  Wright  began  their 

188 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

voyage  in  the  City  of  Chicago.  It  is  a  paper  that  goes 
regularly  to  the  smoking  rooms  of  Atlantic  liners.  I  can 
only  surmise  that  this  copy  fell  under  the  eyes  of  these 
travelers  and  one  or  both  read  my  item.  It  is  quite  possible, 
also^  that  suggestion  played  a  certain  part  in  the  story. 
While  they  were  at  Mr.  Neu's  house  Perrin  H.  Sumner 
in  one  of  his  gyrations  had  caused  the  story  of  the  Getty 
House  suicide  to  be  revived  and  the  newspapers  recalled 
the  case  in  which  the  aged  man  had  removed  from  his 
clothing  all  possible  chance  of  identification.  Exactly  the 
same  precautions,  it  will  be  remembered,  were  taken  by 
Wright  before  he  killed  himself  at  the  Astor  House. 

For  my  own  theory  was  that  the  case  was  a  double-suicide. 
Few  of  my  fellow-workers  on  the  story  agreed  with  me 
about  this  but  to  my  mind  the  clew  of  the  story  in  the 
English  weekly,  slight  as  it  was,  settled  the  question. 
Riittinger  and  Wright  determined  to  die  and  for  some 
reason  that  cannot  be  even  surmised  they  determined  to 
die  in  this  strange,  weird  fashion.  The  reasons  that  prompt 
men  to  do  these  things  are  not  to  be  analyzed,  but  this 
is  by  no  means  the  first  case  in  my  experience  wherein 
men  have  been  pleased  to  make  their  exits  with  all  the 
arrangements  complete  for  mystery  or  stage  thunder.  In 
this  instance,  a  possibility  of  still  another  motive  existed 
in  Riittinger's  insurance  policy,  made  out  for  the  benefit 
of  his  mother.  It  had  a  suicide  clause;  that  is,  a  clause 
by  which  the  policy  should  become  void  if  the  insured  com- 
mitted suicide  within  a  certain  period  of  the  date  of  the 
policy.  This  seemed  to  offer  the  hint  of  a  reason  to  make 
the  suicide  take  on  the  appearance  of  murder,  after  the 
manner  of  the  German  officer.  But  when  I  examined  the 
policy  at  the  office  of  the  insurance  company  I  found  that 
at  the  time  of  Eiittinger's  death  the  suicide  clause  was 

189 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

several  months  expired.  Possibly^  of  course,  he  did  not 
know  this,  yet  so  stood  the  fact. 

But  if  my  theory  be  correct,  certainly  I  have  never 
in  my  experience  encountered  a  figure  more  uncanny  than 
that  of  young  George  Wright.  Only  a  boy,  he  played  in 
the  tragedy  a  part  from  which  I  believe  the  most  hardened 
criminal  I  have  known  would  certainly  shrink.  Imagine 
these  two  friends  and  companions  sitting  all  day  in  the 
wretched  back  room  of  the  wretched  lodging-house,  plan- 
ning suicide.  At  seven  o'clock  they  start  forth  upon  their 
errand,  stopping  for  a  glass  of  beer  and  luncheon.  They 
then  journey  for  half  an  hour  on  a  ferry  boat  and  an  hour 
by  train  imtil  they  reach  the  spot  they  have  selected.  The 
village  is  quiet;  the  people  are  in  their  homes  and  the 
streets  are  deserted.  They  steal  down  the  one  short  business 
street  to  the  water.  There  is  the  narrow  plank  pier.  They 
walk  out  to  the  end.  Riittinger  is  afraid  that  he  will 
struggle  in  the  cold  water  and  the  noise  will  attract  atten- 
tion. Wright  binds  his  hands  behind  him.  They  are  afraid 
that  gurgling  sounds  will  come  from  his  throat.  Wright 
thrusts  Jiis  handkerchief  into  his  friend's  mouth  and  he  falls 
from  the  plank  into  the  water.  Then  Wright  returns  to 
the  railroad  station,  waits  for  the  10:40  train,  travels  an 
hour  by  land,  half  an  hour  by  water,  goes  straight  up  to 
the  Astor  House,  and  kills  himself. 

What  were  his  thoughts  on  that  long  journey?  He  saw 
about  him  men  and  women  that  had  life  before  them  and 
he  had  only  death  close  at  his  elbow  now.  He  sat  there 
in  the  railroad  station,  in  the  train,  in  the  ferry  boat,  and 
saw  all  this  and  never  wandered  from  his  purpose  and  never 
showed  to  any  man's  notice  the  weight  of  Ms  terrible  secret. 
I  know  not  the  like  of  this  thing  in  fiction  or  in  fact.  Sup- 
pose someone  to  speak  to  him  on  the  journey;  suppose  the 

190 


The  Mystery  That  Had  No  Ending 

conductor  to  say:  "  Tickets,  please! "  or  a  fellow-passenger 
to  say:  *'  Cold  to-night,  isn't  it?  *'  and  you  would  think  the 
man  would  shriek  aloud  and  go  mad.  But  for  those  two 
terrible  hours  he  held  his  lonely  way  in  silence  until  having 
registered  in  a  bold,  unshaking  hand,  he  went  coolly  to 
his  own  death. 

Grewsome,  is  it  not  ?  And  yet  no  more  grewsome  than  a 
thousand  other  things  that  actually  happen  and  that  no 
novelist  would  ever  venture  to  use.  How  irrational,  for 
instance,  are  these  actions — if  my  theory  be  correct !  How 
insane  and  foolish  that  men  should  so  destroy  themselves! 
How  foolish  all  the  precautions  against  identification,  for 
why  should  the  dead  take  thought  of  things  like  these? 

I  do  not  know,  to  be  sure,  that  my  theory  is  correct. 
Long  afterward  I  happened  to  be  spending  an  evening  at 
Byrnes's  house  and  reviewing  these  with  other  things,  I 
was  led  to  relate  the  supposition  I  have  set  down  here,  and 
to  ask  the  famous  policeman  what  he  thought  of  it. 

*'  Well,'*  he  said,  pulling  at  his  mustache,  **  such  things 
have  been  known,  my  son;  such  things  have  been  known." 

I  needed  no  other  indorsement,  for  I  knew  what  that 
meant.    He  was  of  about  my  way  of  thinking  himself. 


191 


XI 

THE   CLINIC  THAT  WENT  WRONG 

At  its  regular  space  rate  of  eight  dollars  a  column  the 
New  York  Herald  ordinarily  compensated  its  reporters ;  but 
for  exclusive  news  it  paid  twice  as  much. 

Behind  the  convenient  shoulder  of  this  fact  in  economics 
I  purpose  to  plead  for  the  guild  of  reporters  and  the  art 
of  reporting,  should  censure  befall  for  any  part  in  this 
story  not  up  to  a  professional  code  demanding  at  all  times 
a  bearing  impassive  and  disinterested. 

On  a  day  in  February,  1892,  came  forth  at  Police  Head- 
quarters a  slip  from  the  East  Eighty-fourth  Street  station 
that  was  officially  placed  on  view  for  the  information  of 
reporters  and  read  as  follows: 

**  To  all:  Look  for  Mrs.  Blanche  Reed  and  two  daughters 
aged  five  and  seven,  missing  two  days  from  786  East 
Eighty-ninth  Street.  Woman  is  about  forty-two  years 
old,  medium  height,  slender,  dark  complexion,  dark  eyes. 
Wore  black  cloak  trimmed  with  braid,  a  black  fur  boa, 
broad  black  hat  with  feather ;  children  dressed  nearly  alike, 
dark  blue  cloaks,  trimmed  with  black  braid.** 

This  was  sent  down  to  the  Herald  office,  handed  to  me 
without  comment,  and  constituted  an  assignment.  No. 
786  East  Eighty-ninth  Street  proved  to  be  a  very  decent 
apartment  house,  bright  and  clean,  and  of  the  grade  usually 
occupied  by  fairly  prosperous  tradesmen.  The  Reeds  lived 
in  the  third  flat  front.    Ebenezer  Reed,  the  husband  and 

192 


The  Clinic  That  Went  Wrong 

father^  I  found  to  my  astonishment  was  a  street-car  driver 
on  the  old  Ninth  Avenue  line,  far  on  the  other  side  of  the 
city.  The  circumstance  struck  me  at  once  as  so  unusual 
that  I  made  a  mental  note  of  it  for  investigation. 

An  intelligent  young  woman  of  Hungarian  extraction, 
the  wife  of  the  janitor,  from  whom  evidently  she  had 
learned  the  American  language  after  the  school  of  the  East 
Side  at  the  Bowery,  met  me  at  the  front  door  and  supplied 
the  outlines  of  the  story.  Mrs.  Reed  and  the  two  children 
had  been  missing  since  four  o'clock  on  Monday  afternoon, 
when  they  all  walked  out  of  the  front  door  together  and 
never  returned.  As  for  Reed  he  was  not  now  at  home, 
being  at  his  work,  so  the  flat  was  empty;  but  Reed  would 
be  home  about  eight  that  night,  when  he  could  tell  me  more. 
Could  I  see  their  flat.^     Sure,  come  this  way. 

The  place  consisted  of  five  rooms,  one  small,  the  others 
fairly  large  for  New  York,  furnished  economically  but  in 
noticeably  good  taste.  Some  rather  good  engravings  and 
photographs  were  on  the  walls,  a  little  book-case  stood  in 
a  corner ;  the  tables  were  becomingly  draped ;  the  floors  were 
tastefully  carpeted;  in  the  bedrooms  the  beds  were  neatly 
made;  an  old-maidish  kind  of  precise  order  was  visible 
everywhere;  the  place  shone  with  a  prim  neatness. 

What  did  Mrs.  Reed  take  with  her  when  she  disappeared? 
Nothing,  said  the  janitress,  except  them  two  kids  and  the 
clothes  the  three  of  them  had  on  their  backs.  What — no 
satchel,  valise,  bundle.''  Not  so  much  as  a  grip.  Did  she 
tell  her  husband  anything  about  going  }  Not  a  word.  Leave 
any  letter  or  note  anywhere  about?  Not  a  line.  Say  any- 
thing to  anybody?     Not  a  yip. 

What  kind  of  a  man  was  Reed?  Drink?  Never.  He 
was  the  kindest  old  man  in  the  world,  but  what  we  might 
call  soft,  you  know — simple;  easy  mark.    Quarrel  with  his 

193 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

wife?  What!  him?  Go  on^  he  couldn't  quarrel  with  no- 
body^ that  man.  For  three  years  they  had  lived  in  that 
house  and  never  a  word  from  that  old  guy.  Kind  to  the 
children?  Always;  why,  say,  that  man  just  lived  in  them 
kids;  you  never  see  such  a  man.  Go  out  at  night?  What! 
him?  Well,  you  couldn't  drag  him  out  of  this  place  with  a 
truck.  He  just  moseyed  home  from  work  at  night  and 
stayed  there.  Have  any  pals  or  companions,  you  know; 
good  fellows  and  all  that  ?  What !  him  ?  Why,  there  wasn't 
no  more  of  the  bum  about  him  than  there  is  about  that  post. 
Everybody  would  say  so  that  knew  him.  He  was  a  good 
sort  of  old  guy  but  she  could  tell  me  one  thing:  he  was  hoo- 
dooed by  that  wife  of  his.     That  was  the  fact  about  it. 

Well,  then,  Mrs.  Reed;  how  about  Mrs.  Reed?  The 
janitress  drew  down  the  corners  of  her  mouth  as  one  that 
bites  a  lemon.  She  would  tell  me  the  truth:  the  old  woman 
was  an  old  cat.  How?  Bad?  No;  not  that  way,  just 
proud  and  mean  and  sticky,  a  phrase  that  I  found  to  be 
the  equivalent  for  stuck-up.  Have  any  visitors  or  callers? 
A  few;  mostly  from  the  church;  she  was  hot  stuff  in  the 
church,  all  right.  Have  any  lovers?  What!  her?  That 
old  cat?  Well,  she  should  say  not.  In  her  opinion  the 
old  cat  would  scare  any  man  so  he  would  run  a  block, 
she  was  that  sour  and  disagreeable. 

**  So,"  said  I  when  she  had  ended  this  rapid  fire  pho- 
tography.   "  Now,  tell  us  just  what  happened." 

**  Well,  it  was  like  this.  You  see,  I  was  never  really 
stuck  much  on  this  here  Mrs.  Reed  but  we  never  had  no 
words,  you  understand.  She  looked  down  on  all  of  us; 
she  thought  her  place  was  over  in  Fifth  Avenue  somewhere, 
I  guess.  But  last  Friday,  I  think  it  was,  she  came  into 
my  room  and  says  to  me  that  she  was  tired  of  it  all  and 
was  going  to  end  it. 

194i 


The  Clinic  That  Went  Wrong 

"'End  what?'  says  1,  like  that.  I  didn't  know  any- 
thing to  end. 

** '  End  this  life/  says  she.  *  I  can't  stand  it  no  longer/ 
says  she. 

**  *  Rats !  *  says  I.  *  You've  got  the  best  husband  in  the 
world  and  the  prettiest  children,  and  a  nice  home,  and 
what  are  you  kicking  about.''     What  more  do  you  want?' 

"  *  Oh,  you  don't  know  what  I  suffer/  says  she  and  she 
puts  her  hand  up  to  her  head  like  this.  *  I  can't  stand  it 
no  more/  says  she.  *  Some  day  you  will  find  the  three  of 
us  dead/  says  she.  *  The  river,  I  think  it  will  be  the  river/ 
says  she. 

"  *  Get  along,'  says  I  like  that,  *  and  don't  give  me  no 
guff.  The  river  ?  What've  you  got  to  do  with  the  river  ?  * 
says  I.  *  It's  too  cold  for  one  thing.  You  just  fix  your 
mind  on  them  children  and  your  husband  that  is  the  best 
man  in  the  world,'  says  I,  *  and  fix  up  things  for  them,* 
says  I,  *  and  you  won't  have  time  to  talk  none  about  rivers, 
I  tell  you  that,'  says  I. 

*'  *  You  ain't  got  no  sympathy/  says  she.  *  You  don't 
know  what  I'm  suffering,'  says  she,  and  hikes  out. 

"  Well,  maybe  I  ain't  got  no  sympathy  for  old  cats,  but 
anyway  I  thought  I  had  better  tell  my  husband  about  it, 
because  Sunday  afternoon  when  she  come  in  from  church 
she  did  look  that  wild,  so  I  told  my  husband  what  she  had 
said,  all  about  the  river  and  the  rest  of  that,  and  he  just 
laughed  and  said  he  guessed  the  old  lady  must  be  practicing 
to  go  on  the  stage  and  he  knew  where  there  was  a  chance 
for  her  to  get  a  star  engagement.  You  can't  faze  my 
husband.    He  was  born  and  brought  up  in  New  York. 

"  But,  on  Monday  afternoon,  about  four  o'clock,  down 
colnes  the  old  cat  with  them  two  children,  all  dressed  for 
the  street.    They  went  to  the  corner  of  the  Avenue  and 

195 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

turned  up  that  way  and  that  was  the  last  I  see  of  them. 
I  wouldn't  have  seen  that  but  I  was  outside  beating  mats 
and  had  'em  in  the  corner  of  my  eye  as  they  went  past." 

"  How  did  Mrs.  Reed  look?    Excited?  *' 

'*  Wellj  about  as  she  always  looked,  hard  enough  to  bite 
nails." 

"What  was  the  trouble  she  was  talking  about?  What 
did  she  mean?  " 

"  I  don't  know  no  more  than  that  there  copper  boiler. 
She  had  everything  the  old  man  could  give  her  so  far  as 
I  could  see.  It  wasn't  anything  to  do  with  him,  anyway. 
He  just  slaved  for  the  family.  Know  what  he  done?  He 
got  up  every  morning  at  four  o'clock  and  got  his  own  break- 
fast and  walked  to  Ninth  Avenue  and  Fifty-eighth  Street; 
walked  to  save  car  fare.  I  wouldn't  *a*  done  it  for  any- 
body. And  every  night  he  walked  all  the  way  home.  And 
he  carried  something  in  his  pocket  for  lunch  so  he  wouldn't 
have  to  buy  none.  And  he  worked  every  day,  Sunday  and 
all,  so  as  to  get  more  money  for  that  family.  And  he  never 
spent  a  cent  on  himself. 

Why— 

that 

man 

don't 

even 

smoke ! 
What  do  you  think  about  that?     He  told  me  he  used  to 
smoke  before  he  got  married,  but  he  quit.     What  do  you 
think  of  him  for  an  easy  mark?     It's  my  belief  that  old 
woman  had  him  hoodooed." 

*'  Why  did  he  live  in  Eighty-ninth  Street  away  over  there 
when  his  work  was  at  Fifty-eighth  Street  and  Ninth  Ave- 
nue ?  "  said  I.    "  That  is  at  least  four  miles  from  here." 

196 


The  Clinic  That  Went  Wrong 

"  That  was  the  old  woman  again.  She  was  dead  ashamed 
because  her  husband  was  a  street-car  driver.  She  didn't 
want  anybody  to  know  it.  ^  What  does  your  husband  do  ?  ' 
says  I  when  she  come  to  rent  the  flat.  *  He's  engaged  in 
the  transportation  business,'  says  she,  and  him  all  the 
time  a  street-car  driver.  But  he  never  told  any  lies  about 
it  himself.  The  rent  was  too  big  for  a  street-car  driver  to 
pay,  he  couldn't  afford  it.  She  wanted  to  live  over  here 
and  wouldn't  take  nothing  else.  He  told  me  that  himself. 
There's  her  picture.  Ain't  she  the  stuck-up  thing?  Want 
to  see  the  children's.^  They're  in  here — the  old  man's 
room." 

She  led  me  into  the  small  rear  room,  meanly  furnished. 
On  a  plain  pine  table  were  two  frames,  each  holding  the 
photograph  of  a  little  girl,  remarkably  pretty. 

"  Was  he  expecting  something  like  this  ?  "  said  I. 

"  Don't  think  he  ever  dreamed  of  it." 

"How  does  he  take  it?" 

"  Well,  he's  one  of  them  quiet  men.  He  don't  say  much. 
But  he  ain't  slept  an  hour  since  this  thing  happened.  He 
works  all  day  and  then  comes  home  and  walks  around  most 
of  the  night.  Where?  Why,  to  police  stations  and  up  and 
down  the  streets,  and  wherever  he  thinks  they  might  be. 
He  ain't  said  much  to  anybody,  but  if  there  ever  was  a 
man  all  broke  up  about  anything  it's  that  old  man  Reed. 
It's  my  belief  he's  going  daffy." 

"  Were  the  children  fond  of  their  father  ?  " 

"  Cared  more  for  him  than  they  did  for  the  old  woman — 
seven  times  over." 

"What  do  you  think?" 

"  Well,  I  don't  know — I  guess  the  old  cat's  gone  and 
done  it.  She  looked  wild  enough.  But  don't  you  go  and 
tell  the  old  man.     He'd  go  clean  crazy.     I  ain't  never  told 

197 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

him  a  word  about  what  she  said  to  me.  I'd  believe  any- 
thing about  that  woman.  And  him  as  nice  an  old  man 
as  you  ever  see." 

At  first  I  could  not  understand  why  this  man^  said  to  be 
so  sorely  hurt^  should  continue  at  his  work  as  if  nothing 
had  happened,  but  it  appeared  that  he  was  practically 
penniless.  His  custom  was  to  give  all  his  wages,  week 
by  week,  to  his  wife.  "  I  told  you  she  had  him  hoodooed," 
said  the  janitress.  His  controlling  idea  now  was  to  hire 
detectives  under  the  belief  that  his  family  had  been  kid- 
napped. He  was  already  in  communication  with  a  firm  of 
Hawkshaws  and  had  grasped  firmly  the  first  idea  they 
advanced  to  him,  which  was  that  their  assistance  was  held 
at  a  high  price.  The  only  way  he  knew  to  get  the  money 
was  to  keep  at  his  work. 

Talks  with  other  tenants  of  the  flats  confirmed  much 
of  the  testimony  of  the  janitress.  None  of  them  shared 
the  janitress*s  extreme  opinion  of  Mrs.  Reed  but  none 
was  partial  to  her;  she  had  too  plainly  shown  her  con- 
viction of  their  inferiority.  I  could  find  no  one  to  whom 
she  had  talked  as  to  the  janitress  about  her  troubles  nor 
about  suicide,  but  they  seemed  to  think  her  capable  of 
making  away  with  herself  and  the  children.  **  She  looked 
that  wild-eyed  and  fierce,"  as  one  lady  phrased  it,  **  I 
wouldn't  be  surprised  myself  at  nothing  she  might  have 
did."  On  one  point  all  were  agreed;  the  Reed  family  had 
dwelt,  outwardly  at  least,  in  a  state  of  peace  and  harmony 
that  in  a  flat  house  amounted  to  a  scandal.  It  could  only 
be  interpreted  to  mean  a  household  wherein  the  woman  had 
absolute  sway  and  the  man,  to  quote  one  that  spoke  to  me 
authoritatively,  **  was  just  like  a  dish  rag  in  her  hands." 

I  learned  the  name  of  the  church  that  Mrs.  Reed  had 
attended  and  trailed  to  his  study  the  pastor  thereof,  an 

198 


The  Clinic  That  Went  Wrong 

ansemic  young  man  of  a  spiritual  type  and  far-away  ex- 
pression. He  evidently  desired  to  remain  uncommunicative, 
a  state  of  mind  from  which  it  was  necessary  to  dislodge 
him.  Of  almost  any  given  facts  you  can  usually  take 
certain  views  that  are  likely  to  have  this  effect  upon  the 
most  reticent,  if  you  express  yourself  with  sufficient  skill, 
and  if  the  person  to  whom  you  are  talking  fancies  that  he 
is  to  be  brought  unpleasantly  into  what  you  are  going  to 
write.  On  this  goad  being  diligently  applied  in  the  present 
instance  the  Rev.  Anaemia  awoke  and  expressed  considerable 
interest  in  his  surroundings,  even  to  the  extent  of  becoming 
one  of  the  most  valuable  if  reluctant  witnesses  I  had  yet 
discovered.  For  he  knew  the  whole  family  history  of  the 
Reeds. 

They  had  come  from  a  little  town  in  central  New  York 
State,  a  place  I  had  once  visited  professionally  and  now 
recalled  with  horror  as  one  of  the  deadliest  and  dullest 
of  all  inhabited  regions.  I  will  call  it  Saintsville,  if  that 
will  convey  any  idea  of  the  aggressive  morality  of  its  popu- 
lation. The  woman  had  been  at  one  time,  following  some 
reverses  in  the  family  fortunes,  a  rural  school  teacher;  her 
father,  now  deceased,  had  kept  the  village  hotel  and  in 
his  employ  her  husband  had  been  a  hostler.  At  once  after 
the  marriage  they  had  come  to  New  York,  apparently  at 
a  venture,  and  Reed  had  found  employment  as  a  street-car 
driver.  That  was  all,  said  Anaemia;  and  indeed  it  was 
more  than  he  imagined,  for  recalling  the  portrait  of  the 
woman  and  piecing  together  all  I  had  heard  of  her,  I  sur- 
mised that,  dead  weary  of  the  monotony  of  her  horrible 
town  and  of  her  single  state,  which  must  have  been  of 
many  years,  she  had  planned  the  marriage,  seized  the 
hostler,  and  made  off  with  him  as  the  one  desperate  chance 
of  escape. 

199 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

How  long  had  the  clergyman  known  Mrs.  Reed?  Since 
she  began  to  come  to  his  churchy  three  years  ago.  Had 
he  ever  seen  anything  strange  or  eccentric  in  her  deport- 
ment.^ Oh^  no;  not  at  all.  She  seemed  at  times  to  be 
highly  sensitive  and  impressionable^  but  nothing  that  one 
would  call  morbid.  He  had  noticed  the  last  time  he  saw 
her  that  she  seemed  much  depressed  and  had  sought  to 
cheer  her  with  Christian  counsel.  Would  he  deem  her 
capable  of  a  rash  or  violent  deed;  such  as  taking  her  own 
life,  for  instance.^  Oh,  dear  no;  no  indeed;  he  hoped  not. 
What  did  he  know  about  her  husband?  He  never  came 
to  church,  but  was  understood  to  be  a  very  honest  man. 
Of  course  he  was  only  a  common  working  person  and 
one  might  say  wholly  without  education  or  culture;  but 
quite  honest. 

Reed  was  due  to  return  to  his  deserted  flat  about  eight 
o'clock  and  I  was  curious  to  see  him.  Meantime  we  under- 
took to  trace  the  missing  three  from  their  home.  In  the 
streets  of  New  York  such  a  task  is  so  difficult  that  it  is 
seldom  worth  attempting.  People  are  for  the  most  part 
unobservant  of  one  another;  the  human  tides  pour  along 
the  sidewalks  and  none  notes  whence  they  come  nor  whither 
they  go.  It  has  been  proved  many  times  that  a  person  even 
of  unusual  appearance  can  step  into  the  street  throng  and, 
barring  the  observation  of  acquaintances,  can  move  for  miles 
there  as  if  one  had  the  ancient  "  robe  for  to  go  invisible  " 
of  the  Elizabethan  theater. 

Who  had  seen  a  woman  in  a  black  cloak  leading  two 
little  girls  in  blue?  They  had  started  north  from  Eighty- 
ninth  Street  along  the  west  side  of  Second  Avenue.  Shop- 
keepers or  their  clerks  that  might  have  known  Mrs.  Reed 
as  a  customer  offered  tHe  likeliest  chance.  We  went  from 
store  to  store  and  by  rare  good  fortune  we  actually  got 

200 


The  Clime  That  Went  Wrong, 

traces  of  the  trio  as  far  north  as  Ninety-third  Street. 
They  were  heading  for  the  river;  that  was  the  indica- 
tion. 

This  brought  us  close  upon  eight  o'clock  when  Reed 
would  return  to  his  flat.  I  was  waiting  there  when  he 
came  heavily  in.  From  the  talk  of  the  janitress  and  the 
tenants  I  had  been  led  to  expect  a  man  well  advanced  in 
years  and  was  rather  astonished  to  find  that  obviously  he 
was  under  forty.  Little  observation  sufficed  to  show  that 
he  was  not  of  the  types  of  which  villains  are  made,  nor 
roisterers.  I  have  never  seen  a  human  figure  more  rustic 
and  unsophisticated;  the  country  was  stamped  on  his  face 
and  revealed  in  every  movement  of  his  body  and  tone  of  his 
voice.  He  was  rather  tall,  loosely  and  powerfully  built, 
and  stooped  a  little.  His  long  and  we  thought  rather  strong 
face  was  cleanly  shaven;  his  eyes  were  clear,  blue,  and 
without  a  suspicion  of  guile.  I  could  readily  understand 
why  the  janitress  had  said  so  much  about  his  simple  hon- 
esty; it  seemed  to  be  so  marked  upon  him  that  the  sus- 
picions I  had  professionally  entertained  were  in  his  presence 
only  grotesque.  He  was  shy,  diffident,  self-conscious,  and 
probably  oppressed  with  a  sense  of  his  deficiencies,  for  his 
scanty  education  was  manifest  as  soon  as  he  began  to  speak ; 
but  he  was  far  from  being  unintelligent  or  uninteresting. 
He  had  a  manner  of  native  deference  and  gentleness  rather 
attractive;  and  manly  character  looked  unmistakably  from 
his  troubled  eyes.  For  his  grief  was  manifestly  sincere, 
his  anxiety  painful  to  witness,  and  all  in  all  I  concluded 
that  if  he  were  in  any  way  to  blame  for  the  disruption  of 
his  household  and  the  loss  of  his  children  the  fault  could 
not  have  been  premeditated. 

I  questioned  him  closely  while  he  ate  a  little  of  the  supper 
the  janitor's  wife  had  brought  up  to  him,  and  so  we  sat 

201 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

face  to  face  until  he  started  upon  his  wanderings,  for  he 
intended  to  spend  this  night  also,  or  most  of  it,  in  tramping 
the  streets.  I  could  see  that  he  was  wearied  almost  to 
the  physical  limit  of  endurance  and  marveled  at  the  strength 
of  purpose  that  kept  him  still  upon  his  feet. 

His  manner  of  answering  my  questions  was  brief,  but 
for  a  man  laboring  under  such  a  stress  it  was  patient  and 
even  kindly.  He  professed  to  be  unable  to  give  any  ex- 
planation of  the  mystery.  Why  should  his  wife  leave 
home?  He  did  not  know.  Was  it  possible  she  had  gone, 
even  without  baggage,  to  visit  relatives  out  of  town?  She 
had  none;  her  father  and  mother  were  dead;  she  had  been 
their  only  child.  Then,  to  visit  friends,  perhaps?  He 
had  inquired  of  all  the  friends  of  whom  he  had  any  knowl- 
edge, personally  here  in  the  city  and  by  telegraph  to 
Saintsville.  Any  trace  of  her  at  the  Grand  Central  Station 
or  the  ferries?  No.  Had  she  any  reason  of  business  or 
pleasure  that  should  induce  her  to  go  away  ?  None.  Any- 
thing at  home?  None.  She  had  been  a  good  wife,  the 
children  had  been  dear  and  good ;  there  had  been  no  quarrel ; 
not  even  a  disagreement.  Sure  about  that?  Sure.  Had 
he  noticed  that  his  wife  had  been  flighty  of  late,  or  de- 
pressed or  nervous?  Well,  it  was  true  that  she  hadn't 
been  saying  much  the  last  few  days  before  she  went  away 
but  he  did  not  think  that  meant  anything.  What  was  his 
own  idea  of  it?  Well,  taking  everything  together  he 
thought  she  must  have  gone  out  to  buy  something  and  got 
lost,  and  that  was  why  he  was  roving  around  so  much  at 
night,  because  he  hoped  to  find  her. 

One  question  more:  She  had  a  key  to  the  flat  here  and 
you  had  another?  Yes.  The  door  has  a  spring  lock?  Yes. 
Did  she  leave  her  key  or  take  it?  She  left  it  hanging  on 
the  little  nail  by  the  inner  side  of  the  door. 

202 


The  Clinic  That  Went  Wrong 

"  Hum/*  said  I,  and  had  hardly  the  courage  to  look 
at  his  face. 

The  next  day  most  of  the  morning  newspapers  had 
stories  of  this  unusual  disappearance,  giving  about  such 
an  outline  as  I  have  given  here.  We  returned  to  the 
case  and  having  arranged  for  thorough  inquiries  at  the 
railroad  stations  and  ferries,  sifted  out  such  friends  as 
Mrs.  Reed  had  in  the  church.  This  proved  unproductive, 
for  none  had  illuminating  knowledge  of  her ;  they  had  known 
her  much  as  the  pastor  had  known  her.  We  next  took  up 
the  trail  upon  Second  Avenue  and  here  developed  a  clew 
of  startling  importance.  On  a  chance  we  talked  with  the 
keeper  of  the  Second  Avenue  bridge  and  found  that  on 
Monday  evening  just  at  dusk  he  had  seen  a  woman  and 
two  little  girls  walk  upon  the  bridge,  stand  for  some  time 
near  the  center  looking  down  upon  the  water,  and  then 
move  toward  the  other  end  of  the  structure.  Both  the 
keeper  and  his  assistant  had  remarked  the  circumstance. 
About  the  further  end  of  the  bridge  in  those  days  were 
untenanted  piers  and  lonely  streets.  If  one  were  bent 
upon  suicide  here  was  a  convenient  spot.  I  was  the  more 
inclined  to  this  suggestion  when  I  got  to  the  Eighty- 
fourth  Street  station  and  found  that  the  police  were 
aware  of  the  testimony  of  the  bridge  tender  and  were 
ready  to  accept  the  theory  of  suicide  and  give  over  the 
search. 

"  If  you  don't  get  them  in  three  days*  hunt  you  don't 
generally  get  them  at  all,"  was  the  philosophical  conclusion 
of  the  desk  sergeant. 

When  I  called  at  Reed's  flat  that  night  I  found  him 
sitting  before  his  little  bare  table  in  his  own  little  room. 
He  had  in  his  hand  a  single  sheet  of  writing  paper  on 

203 


TKese  Shifting  Scenes 

which  was  printed  in  a  scrawling  baby  hand  letters  I  could 
make  out  to  read  like  this : 


Good  bye  papa 
Tessie  loves  you. 

"  Where  did  you  get  that?  *'  I  asked^  struck  with  a  sudden 
suspicion. 

**  I  found  it  in  her  picture  story  book  here,"  and  he  in- 
dicated the  space  between  the  cover  and  the  first  page. 

"When?" 

"  Just  now.  I  was  looking  at  her  book  and  it  dropped 
out." 

"  Why  did  you  look  at  that  book  in  particular  ?  " 

"  Well,  you  see,  that  was  the  last  book  I  give  her  and 
every  night  before  she  went  to  bed  she  used  to  come  and 
crawl  up  into  my  lap  and  show  me  the  pictures  and  she 
must  have  thought  perhaps  I'd  look  at  it  when  she  was 
gone." 

We  sat  there  in  silence  for  a  moment  or  two  and  then 
he  turned  his  blue  eyes  on  me  and  said: 

"  Did  you  hear  anything  for  me  to-day  ?  " 

So  here  was  the  point  raised  upon  me  that  I  had  de- 
termined to  avoid.  I  had  heard  something  and  I  lacked 
the  hardihood  to  tell  him.  It  was  miserably  unprofessional, 
but  what  are  you  going  to  do?  The  code  of  professional 
ethics  sternly  forbade  a  man  to  be  sentimental  or  moved 
about  anything  he  saw.  **  Be  exactly  like  a  doctor  at  a 
clinic,"  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  respected  of  our  re- 
porters had  repeatedly  told  me.  "No  matter  what  may 
happen,  remember  that.  Be  exactly  like  a  doctor  at  a 
clinic — interested  in  the  dissection  but  not  moved  by  it. 
The  moment  you  lose  control  of  yourself  you  lose  control 

204 


The  Clinic  That  Went  Wrong 

of  your  readers.  Interested  but  not  concerned — ^that  is 
the  only  safe  rule."  I  can  say  truthfully  that  I  made 
Conscientious  endeavors  to  follow  this  rule,  which  I  still 
believe  to  be  good  and  true,  but  what  are  you  going  to 
do  when  before  you  sits  a  man  like  this?  If  he  would 
make  a  fuss  or  declaim  or  denounce  or  even  shed  tears  I 
think  I  could  be  faithful  to  the  code.  But  to  see  a  big 
man  quivering  under  such  a  load  and  being  so  plainly 
crushed  before  your  eyes,  what  are  you  going  to  do?  said 
I  to  myself.  Lie,  I  suppose;  lie  like  a  horse  thief  and 
get  out  of  that  door  with  celerity. 

Anyway,  I  looked  at  his  face  and  if  I  had  any  lingering 
intention  of  abiding  by  the  ethics  it  fled  from  me.  "  Will 
you  let  me  look  again  at  your  wife's  photograph  ?  "  said  I, 
catching  at  a  bare  chance  and  the  only  one  I  could  think  of. 

He  arose  and  fetched  it  from  the  other  room.  I  studied 
well  the  face  it  showed.  Thin,  bitter  lips  clenched 
above  an  implacable  jaw;  bitter  eyes  looking  forth  without 
speculation ;  a  face  without  tenderness,  and  if  it  spoke  true, 
a  soul  with  no  more  than  surface  feelings — ^it  seemed  to 
me  that  here  was  much  selfishness,  some  capacity  for  pas- 
sion, much  that  was  aggressive  and  domineering,  but  if  I 
could  read  aright  no  trace  of  the  wild,  dreamy,  introspec- 
tive and  self-torturing  endowment  that  you  might  reasonably 
expect  in  one  likely  to  commit  suicide.  I  put  the  photograph 
from  me  and  on  this  hint  alone  I  said: 

"  Mr.  Reed,  you  are  giving  yourself  needless  worry  and 
pain  about  this.  Your  wife  and  children  are  alive  and 
you  will  hear  from  them  again.  I  can't  tell  ^ou  how  I 
know  this,  but  I  feel  it  and  am  sure  of  it." 

Before  I  went  to  the  office  that  night  I  made  a  final 
call  at  the  flat  house  to  be  assured  that  no  news  had  been 
received. 

205 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

"  Hey  youse ! "  called  out  my  friend  from  Hungary  as 
I  opened  the  street  door.  **  That  was  a  good  turn  you  did 
the  old  man  to-night.  You  cheered  him  up  more  than 
anything  that's  happened.  He  thinks  you  reporters  are 
on  the  level  anyway  because  you  don't  none  of  you  touch  * 
him  and  when  you  told  him  to-night  you  thought  his  kids 
was  all  rights  it  just  cheered  him  right  up.  Now  you 
jolly  him  again  like  that  if  you  can  and  we'll  get  him  to 
quit  tramping  around  and  get  some  sleep." 

I  stepped  upstairs.  The  car  driver  had  returned  early 
from  the  streets  that  night.  He  was  sitting  before  the 
table  still  holding  that  scrawled  little  note.  I  always  carried 
about  me  a  few  sheets  of  tracing  paper  and  he  readily 
consented  that  I  should  take  a  tracing  of  the  words,  which 
I  did  for  the  benefit  of  our  art  department. 

After  the  Herald  had  gone  to  press  that  night  the  boy 
from  the  editorial  floor  brought  up  a  letter  that  the 
gentlemen  in  that  dull  region  had  in  their  usual  fashion 
managed  to  delay,  under  the  impression,  no  doubt,  that  it 
was  something  referring  to  the  tariff  or  the  constitution. 
It  was  handsomely  written  on  embossed  paper  and  read, 
as  nearly  as  I  can  recall  it,  thus: 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Herald: 
Dear  Sir:  — 

That  there  may  be  no  more  publicity  about  the  matter  and  that 
the  Herald  may  cease  to  waste  its  energies  upon  a  subject  of  so  little 
importance  to  its  readers,  allow  me  to  assure  you  that  Mrs.  Blanche 
Reed,  formerly  of  No.  786  East  Eighty-ninth  Street,  is  alive  and 
under  the  care  of  her  friends. 

The  name  signed  to  this  document  was  the  name  of  one 
of  the  best  known  women  in  New  York,  famed  for  philan- 

*  Meaning,  ask  him  for  money. 
206 


The  Clime  That  Went  Wrong 

thropy,  aggressive  interest  in  civic  reform,  wealth,  and  a 
place  in  society.  I  will  call  her  Mrs.  Demillion,  which  is 
nothing  like  her  name.  Her  address  was  correctly  given 
and  all  things  seemed  to  be  in  keeping,  but  I  deemed  the 
letter  to  be  a  hoax.  Among  the  freaks  in  a  great  city  is 
one  with  a  mind  that  discovers  pleasure  in  sending  news- 
papers on  false  clews.  This  form  of  lunacy  seldom  fails 
to  manifest  itself  when  a  mystery  has  lasted  more  than 
three  days  and  I  believed  that  I  had  here  only  a  fresh 
specimen  of  its  ferment.  Nevertheless  at  two  o'clock  that 
afternoon  with  the  letter  in  my  pocket  I  arrived  at  the 
Demillion  door. 

A  palpably  upholstered  English  butler,  a  type  with  which 
I  had  a  long-standing  quarrel,  regarded  me  with  uncon- 
cealed hostility  when  he  had  learned  my  errand,  but  con- 
descended to  take  up  my  card.  When  Mrs.  Demillion 
came  down  I  found  myself  confronted  by  a  pale,  languid 
person  that  from  a  height  surveyed,  apparently  with  dis- 
approval, all  things  below. 

*'  My  letter  to  the  editor  of  the  Herald  contains  all  I 
care  to  say,"  she  observed  icily.  "  I  do  not  know  why  the 
Herald  should  concern  itself  further  about  the  matter. 
Mrs.  Reed  is  under  my  protection  and  will  be  well  cared 
for." 

"And  the  children?" 

"  The  children  are  with  her.    They  will  be  put  at  school." 

"  May  I  ask  how  you  came  to  interest  yourself  in  Mrs. 
Reed?" 

"It  is  really  a  matter  of  no  moment  or  interest,  but  her 
unfortunate  situation  was  brought  to  my  notice  by  friends 
that  had  learned  of  it.  Mrs.  Reed,  you  should  understand, 
is  a  gentlewoman.  She  has  education  and  refinement  and 
her  family,  until  it  met  with  reverses,  was  one  of  wealth. 

207 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

She  contracted  a  mesalliance.  She  was  most  unhappy  in  her 
deplorable  position  and  I  was  glad  to  be  able  to  release 
her  from  it/* 

"  Mesalliance?  "  said  I.     "  How  was  that?  " 

*'  Why,  she,  a  refined  and  educated  gentlewoman,  was 
married  to  a  mere  boor,  a  common  workingman." 

"  Did  you  ever  see  him  ?  " 

"  Mercy,  no !  But  I  had  the  case  thoroughly  investi- 
gated before  I  consented  to  assist  Mrs.  Reed.  I  found 
that  her  husband  was  simply  impossible  and  perceiving  the 
terrible  situation  in  which  she,  as  a  gentlewoman,  was 
placed,  I  undertook  to  release  her  from  it.** 

"  To  leave  her  husband,  without  a  word  of  parting, 
without  warning  or  explanation  ?  ** 

"  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  that.  It  was  entirely  her 
own  affair.  Agents  of  our  charitable  society  with  whom 
she  had  talked  brought  her  sad  case  to  my  attention.  I 
agreed  to  help  an  unfortunate  gentlewoman  in  distress.  I 
have  done  so  and  shall  continue  to  do  so  until,  by  congenial 
employment,  she  has  become  self-supporting.** 

"  Do  you  know  that  this  husband  and  father  thus  coldly 
abandoned  without  explanation,  is  walking  the  streets  in 
intolerable  pain,  searching  for  his  children?  Do  you  know 
that  he  is  likely  to  go  mad  unless  his  suspense  can  be 
relieved  ?  ** 

She  looked  at  me  with  some  astonishment  and  I  fancied 
a  trace  of  confusion,  but  instantly  regained  her  poise  and 
said: 

"  I  know  nothing  about  it.  I  have  no  other  knowledge 
of  the  case  than  I  have  given  to  you.  But  I  know  it  has 
had  a  ridiculous  amount  of  attention  from  the  public  press. 
I  hope  the  matter  may  now  be  allowed  to  rest.  We  have 
done  for  Mrs.  Reed  what  we  could  to  relieve  a  genuine 

208 


The  Clinic  That  Went  Wrong 

case  of  distress  and  shall  continue  to  aid  her  so  long  as 
she  needs  aid.'* 

I  saw  I  Was  making  little  headway  by  an  appeal  to  her 
sympathy.     I  shifted  ground  and  said: 

**  No  doubt  you  have  acted  in  accordance  with  the  highest 
ideals  of  philanthropy.  But  the  father  really  ought  to  be 
relieved  of  his  anxiety,  which  would  seem  to  be  need- 
less." 

She  considered  of  this  for  a  moment  and  then  said: 

"  Under  no  conditions  will  Mrs.  Reed  again  see  her  hus- 
band. She  is  decided  upon  that.  But  as  to  relieving  his 
mind,  if  you  really  think  he  is  suffering,  which  seems  to 
me  improbable,  I  have  no  objection  to  your  telling  him 
that  his  wife  and  children  are  safe  and  in  good  hands. 
In  my  judgment  persons  of  his  order  do  not  really  suffer 
much.  But  if  he  has  such  concern  about  them  as  you  say, 
he  will  doubtless  be  glad  to  learn  that  his  children  are 
to  have  advantages  such  as  he  could  never  give  them. 
But  as  you  can  readily  see  I  could  never  consent  that  he 
be  informed  of  this  address.  Otherwise,  I  am  willing  that 
the  Herald  should  do  what  it  thinks  best  about  the  matter. 
Provided,  of  course,  there  shall  be  no  more  publicity.** 

**  I  will  report  your  request  to  the  city  editor,**  said  I, 
"  who  will  doubtless  give  to  it  every  consideration.  And 
now,  of  course,  I  shall  have  to  see  Mrs.  Reed.** 

I  shot  this  at  her  in  a  matter-of-fact  way,  for  I  suspected 
it  would  be  a  difficult  point  to  gain  and  I  desired  to  take 
her  off  her  guard. 

She  hesitated. 

"  As  you  can  see,**  said  I,  "  it  will  be  the  sure  way,  and 
in  fact,  the  only  way  to  end  this  publicity.** 

She  surrendered  at  this;  I  could  see  she  was  in  deadly 
terror  lest  her  own  name  should  figure  unpleasantly  in  the 

209 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

story,  and  without  loss  of  time  she  wrote  for  me  a  note 
giving  me  permission  to  see  Mrs.  Blanche  Reed  and  children. 

"  That  is  where  she  is  at  present,'*  said  she,  indicating 
the  address.  "  It's  the  creche  of  our  society.  Yes,  you 
will  find  her  there  now," 

The  rest  of  this  story  does  not  amount  to  much  except 
as  an  example  to  the  young  and  a  warning  against  yielding 
to  temptation.  It  was  highly  unprofessional ;  the  newspaper 
does  not  employ  reporters  to  create  stories,  nor  to  interfere 
with  stories  already  made ;  least  of  all  to  go  about  assuming 
the  roles  of  philanthropy.  Moreover,  there  was  that  rule 
about  the  clinic  as  the  correct  inspiration  for  a  reporter's 
conduct;  "be  interested,  but  not  concerned."  But  when  a 
man  has  a  face  like  Reed's  and  a  note  ftom  his  missing 
baby,  and  when  the  car  barn  was  such  a  short  distance 
away,  you  might  expect  trouble.  Strange  how  temptations 
combine  to  throw  a  man  when  he  once  starts  upon  steps 
astray !  It  was  wholly  unprofessional,  but  one  of  us  remem- 
bered that  Superintendent  Hilson  of  the  street-car  line 
was  a  good  man  and  a  friend,  and  slipped  down  there 
to  see  him.  And  this  man  explained  some  things  to  Mr. 
Hilson,  so  Mr.  Hilson  put  a  substitute  at  work  in  Reed's 
place  when  Reed  came  in  from  his  next  run.  And  then 
this  man  took  Reed  in  tow  and  started  uptown.  Having 
found  that  his  plans  had  a  habit  of  going  awry  he  did  not 
tell  Reed  what  was  in  hand;  just  towed  him  along  toward 
the  place  appointed. 

"  You  keep  on  the  north  side  of  this  corner,"  the  man 
said  to  Reed  when  they  were  near  the  address,  **  and  wait 
for  me.  Don't  go  far  away  no  matter  what  happens." 
Leaving  him  so  the  reporter  made  for  the  creche,  a  bare 
and  unattractive  old  residence,  imperfectly  transformed  by 
the  hand  of  philanthropy  to  its  present  uses.     In  a  few 

210 


The  Clinic  That  Went  Wrong 

minutes  Mrs.  Reed  came  downstairs  followed  by  the  two 
girls.  The  reporter  thought  they  did  not  seem  to  be  par- 
ticularly happy. 

**  Tessie/'  said  he  to  the  younger^  and  ignoring  the 
mother's  frigid  stare,  **  do  you  remember  this  ?  *'  and  he 
brought  out  the  tracing  of  her  scribbled  note  to  her  father. 

She  danced  forward,  shouting  with  delight  and  clapping 
her  hands. 

"  What  is  all  this  ?  "  demanded  the  mother  sharply.  The 
reporter  put  the  paper  into  her  hands.  "  Papa !  Let's  go 
home  to  papa !  "  shouted  both  of  the  children,  pulling  at 
her  dress.     "  We  want  to  go  home  to  papa !  " 

Mrs.  Reed  smoothed  out  the  paper  and  read  it.  You 
could  see  she  was  hard  hit,  although  she  was  struggling 
with  her  miserable  conception  of  the  austere  composure  re- 
quired of  a  perfect  gentlewoman.  The  children  were  cry- 
ing now  and  pulling  her  toward  the  door. 

*'  Where  is  he  ?  "  said  the  woman  softly.    **  Is  he  sorry  ?  " 

*'  Let's  go  home  to  papa !  "  piped  the  children.  "  Oh, 
mamma,  let's  go  home  to  papa.  We  hate  this  old  house. 
Let's  go  home !  " 

Well,  man  is  a  feeble  creature  and  foolish.  It  was  all 
absolutely  unprofessional.  Some  things  were  said  on  both 
sides  and  the  upshot  was  that  the  four  marched  out  of  the 
front  door  of  the  creche  and  around  the  corner,  and  the 
last  thing  the  reporter  saw  as  he  started  for  his  office  was 
the  street-car  driver  with  his  two  little  girls  in  his  arms 
and  the  mother  hanging  to  his  elbow. 

The  reporter  got  a  column  and  three-quarters.  It  was 
an  exclusive  story.  At  sixteen  dollars  a  column.  And  times 
were  hard. 

The  next  day  he  was  sent  to  Georgia,  I  think  it  was, 
to  investigate  a  land  fraud.     Some  weeks  passed  before 

211 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

he  again  happened  to  be  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  East 
Eighty-fourth  police  station.  From  sheer  curiosity  he  went 
up  to  No.  786  East  Eighty-ninth  and  rang  the  janitor's 
bell.  Hungaria  thrust  through  the  opened  door  a  face  that 
smiled  broadly. 

"  Hello!  '*  says  he,  "  how  are  the  Reeds?  " 

"  Skipped/*  says  she  succinctly. 

"Where?" 

"  Oh,  back  to  Saintsville,  or  whatever  it  is." 

"When  did  they  go?" 

"  Right  after  the  old  cat  came  back." 

"What!     All  of  them?" 

"  The  whole  gang  with  the  old  cat.  Gee !  but  the  old 
man  was  glad!  And  if  there  ever  was  a  man  that  was 
hoodooed  by  his  wife  it  was  that  there  old  man  Reed.'^ 

That  is  all  we  ever  knew  of  them.  We  never  found 
out  what  vagary  possessed  the  woman  to  talk  to  the  janitress 
about  suicide  and  the  river.  We  never  found  out  what 
induced  her  to  walk  up  to  Second  Avenue  bridge  and  look 
at  the  water,  nor  why  she  chose  to  leave  home  in  a  way 
so  melodramatic.  In  this  business  you  have  very  little 
call  to  determine  why  things  happen.  About  all  you  can 
attend  to  competently  is  the  happening. 


212 


XII 

HOW    HARRISON    WAS    NOMINATED    AT    MINNEAPOLIS   IN    1892 

In  the  four  years  of  the  Harrison  administration  the 
famous  Coppinger  case  had  arisen  to  reverse  the  position 
of  some  of  the  players  at  the  Republican  board.  From 
any  point  of  view  it  seems  now  a  matter  ridiculously  small 
to  make  history,  but,  if  I  have  observed  with  any  tolerable 
accuracy,  history  is  made  chiefly  by  small  things  and  small 
men.  Coppinger  was  a  major  in  the  United  States  Army; 
he  had  married  a  daughter  of  Mr.  Blaine.  President  Har- 
rison, perhaps  in  grateful  recognition  of  that  timely  cable 
message,  had  made  Mr.  Blaine  his  Secretary  of  State. 
Mrs.  Blaine  wished  her  son-in-law  promoted.  Mr.  Harri- 
son declined  to  advance  him  over  the  heads  of  officers  that 
had  not  married  daughters  of  the  Secretary  of  State.  Mrs. 
Blaine  was  a  powerful  and  self-willed  lady;  she  bitterly 
resented  what  she  conceived  to  be  a  slight  upon  her  family ; 
the  desire  for  revenge  overtopped  her  repugnance  to  cam- 
paign publicity;  and  she  thrust  Mr.  Blaine  into  the  arena 
from  which  she  had  dragged  him  four  years  before. 

I  suppose  the  Secretary  of  State  was  nothing  loath. 
He  did  not  like  Harrison  and  for  many  years  he  had  been 
infected  with  the  presidential  fever,  which,  as  is  well  known, 
never  leaves  its  victim  while  the  victim  lives.  How  far 
Mr.  Blaine's  ambition  really  deluded  him  on  this  occasion 
was  never  quite  clear  to  us  nor  whether  he  desired  so 
much  to  be  named  himself  as  to  make  trouble  for  Harrison. 

218 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

In  reasonable  moments  he  must  have  known  perfectly  well 
that  the  country  that  year  was  Democratic  and  there  was 
scarcely  a  chance  to  elect  any  Republican,,  even  himself. 
He  must  also  have  entertained  grave  doubts  as  to  his  ability 
to  live  through  a  campaign.  For  a  long  time  his  health 
had  been  bad  and  growing  worse.  His  malady  was  in- 
curable and  he  knew  it.  And  yet  it  presently  became  clear 
to  the  political  reporters,  or  some  of  them,  that  he  was 
putting  forth  all  his  remaining  power  and  influence  to 
secure  the  nomination. 

At  first  the  country  absolutely  refused  to  believe  this. 
It  desired  to  think  well  of  Mr.  Blaine  and  Mr.  Blaine  was 
still  Secretary  of  State  in  Mr.  Harrison's  cabinet;  there- 
fore if  he  were  in  any  way  seeking  the  nomination  for 
himself  he  was  betraying  his  chief.  Experienced  observers 
could  not  deny  that  Mr.  Piatt,  who  hated  Mr.  Harrison, 
was  quietly  setting  up  the  pins  for  Blaine;  but  they  could 
not  think  that  this  was  with  Blaine's  sanction  or  knowledge. 
In  the  midst  of  the  growing  unrest  Mr.  Blaine  came  to 
New  York.  I  had  not  seen  him  for  more  than  a  year  and 
the  change  wrought  upon  him  seemed  very  great  and  very 
sad.  He  had  grown  thinner  and  plainly  weaker;  his  skin, 
always  colorless,  had  taken  on  a  deadly  waxen  pallor;  he 
moved  with  difficulty  from  his  car  and  as  he  walked  slowly 
down  the  station  platform  his  heels  hammered  the  ground. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  there  was  *'  in  his  eyes  foreknowledge 
of  death  " ;  that  he  had  a  burdened  and  haunted  look,  in- 
describably pathetic.  He  sat  in  a  carriage  crossing  the 
river  and  on  the  New  York  side  drove  to  the  Fifth  Avenue 
Hotel — Mr.  Piatt's  quarters.  We  followed  him.  At  the 
hotel  we  were  swept  into  one  of  the  small  dining  rooms  and 
after  an  hour's  waiting  Mr.  Blaine  came  in.  It  was  plainly 
a  thing  prearranged.    Twenty  or  thirty  reporters  represent- 

214» 


How  Harrison  Was  Nominated 

ing  all  the  newspapers  and  news  agencies  in  New  York  were 
gathered  on  one  side  of  the  table.  Mr.  Blaine  advanced 
slowly  and  stood  on  the  other  side  facing  us.  Under  the 
electric  chandelier  the  death-like  pallor  of  his  face  was  still 
more  noticeable.  He  stood  holding  to  the  back  of  a  chair. 
The  room  was  perfectly  silent ;  in  the  air  was  a  something  we 
all  felt  that  was  depressing  and  funereal.  With  a  visible 
effort  Mr.  Blaine  raised  his  eyes  and  looked  at  us.  Then 
he  said: 

"  Gentlemen,  what  can  I  do  for  you  ?  " 

I  know  well  enough  that  all  of  us  that  in  other  days  had 
seen  this  man  there  before  us  felt  startled  as  if  at  a  blow. 
The  light  had  gone  out  of  the  eyes  that  had  been  so 
brilliant,  the  old  musical  ring  was  lost  from  the  voice,  all 
the  old  magnetic  cordiality  that  had  charmed  so  many  men 
and  swept  so  many  from  the  moorings  of  faith  and  reason, 
all,  all  gone.  Once  he  had  been  so  trim  and  neat  and  well 
groomed;  and  now  his  hair  hung  dankly  awry,  his  clothes 
sat  loosely  upon  him,  and  in  the  place  of  the  old  jaunty 
self-possession  here  was  a  visible  shrinking  and  trem- 
bling. 

"  Gentlemen,  what  can  I  do  for  you  ?  " 

Edward  Riggs,  of  the  Sun,  as  our  spokesman,  gently 
explained  the  interest  that  the  newspapers  felt  in  Mr, 
Blaine's  visit  to  New  York  at  a  time  so  critical  in  political 
affairs.  Mr.  Blaine  listened,  I  thought,  as  one  who  is 
simulating  an  interest.  When  Mr.  Riggs  made  an  end, 
Mr.  Blaine  in  set  phrases  said  that  his  visit  to  New  York 
had  no  political  significance.  He  had  come  to  the  city  to 
consult  his  oculist  and  for  no  other  purpose.  He  was  not 
actively  interested  in  politics,  could  not  be,  and  never  ex- 
pected to  be  again. 

**  Then  your  visit,"  said  someone,  "  has  no  possible  re- 

215 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

lation  in  any  way  to  the  National  Convention  nor  to  what 
may  be  done  there?  " 

"  None  whatever/'  said  Mr.  Blaine. 

Someone  asked  about  his  health. 

"  My  health/*  said  Mr.  Blaine,  passing  a  hand  in  a  tired 
way  over  his  forehead,  "  is  very  good  indeed.  I  have  had 
a  little  trouble  with  my  eyes,  but  otherwise  nothing." 

That  was  all.  The  show  was  over;  Mr.  Blaine  retired. 
Going  up  the  stairs  to  Mr.  Piatt's  rooms  in  the  hotel  I 
met  a  man  that  was  coming  down.  I  glanced  at  his  face 
and  recognized  him  as  one  that  I  had  known  well  in  Chi- 
cago, where  he  had  borne  confidential  political  relations  to 
Mr.  Joseph  Medill,  editor  of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  Mr.  Me- 
dill  was  and  had  been  for  years  Mr.  Blaine's  closest  friend 
and  adviser  in  politics.  The  next  morning  I  was  able  to  an- 
nounce to  the  readers  of  the  Herald  that  Mr.  Blaine  was 
seriously  a  candidate  for  the  Republican  nomination.  On 
the  Saturday  before  the  Convention  met  Mr.  Blaine  settled 
the  controversy  that  followed  this  announcement  by  resign^ 
ing  his  place  in  the  cabinet  and  thus  in  the  most  effective 
way  declaring  his  candidacy. 

The  Convention  was  held  in  Minneapolis.  The  Anti- 
Harrison  forces  through  the  country  had  been  chiefly 
directed  by  Senator  Wolcott  of  Colorado,  assisted  by 
Mr.  Piatt.  Mr.  Blaine's  name  had  been  kept  judiciously 
in  the  background  so  long  as  he  was  in  the  cabinet;  when 
he  resigned  no  secret  was  made  of  the  intention  to  nominate 
him.  The  Harrison  campaign  had  been  carried  on  almost 
exclusively  by  Federal  office  holders;  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  party  never  cared  for  the  President;  he  was  too  cold, 
too  remote,  and  too  self-contained;  there  was  no  fire  to  be 
struck  from  that  icicle.  In  many  of  the  Northern  states 
the  office  holders  had  been  unable  to  keep  the  conventions 

216 


How  Harrison  Was  Nominated 

in  line;  there  was  an  immense  element  of  the  disaffected 
that  merely  knew  they  did  not  want  Harrison  without 
clear  notions  as  to  whom  they  did  want.  In  that  respect 
it  was  the  most  peculiar  Convention  I  have  ever  seen; 
but  much  of  the  vagueness  resulted  from  the  necessity  of 
keeping  the  Blaine  propaganda  quiet  so  long  as  Blaine 
was  in  the  cabinet.  As  the  delegates  came  to  town  it  was 
evident  that  three  in  five  of  the  Northern  men,  that  is  the 
representatives  of  the  states  where  the  Republican  candidate 
must  needs  look  for  votes,  were  against  Harrison,  and  it 
was  also  evident  that  with  generalship  and  management 
the  Convention  could  be  swung  against  him.  The  problem 
before  the  Blaine  managers  was  to  get  all  the  disaffected 
elements  in  line,  and  then  to  do  something  else.  To  a 
certain  extent  the  decision  would  lie  with  the  Southern 
delegations,  mostly  Negroes.  Many  of  these  were  for  sale 
like  cattle;  being  disfranchised  at  home,  politics  had  no 
other  interest  or  meaning  for  them.  They  came  up  to  the 
Convention  to  get  what  they  could  for  their  votes  and  they 
did  not  care  a  straw  for  whom  they  voted  so  long  as  the 
terms  were  satisfactory. 

No  two  Conventions  of  the  same  party  were  ever  less 
alike  than  the  Convention  that  nominated  General  Harrison 
in  1888  and  the  Republican  Convention  of  1892.  Many 
of  the  actors  were  the  same  but  the  situation  was  now  very 
different.  A  great  change,  entirely  unremarked,  had  swept 
over  business  and  politics.  The  manufacturers,  or  Protected 
Interests,  were  no  longer  in  the  saddle.  Already  the  process 
of  consolidation  and  combination  had  eliminated  much  com- 
petition and  at  the  same  time  thrown  the  eventual  power 
into  the  hands  that  financed  the  great  combinations.  Now 
the  dominating  influence  in  business  and  politics  was  no 
longer  Manufacturing  but  Financial,   and  the   Financial 

217 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

Interests  having  determined  to  nominate  and  to  elect  Grover 
Cleveland^  the  Republican  Convention  was  left  to  its  own 
devices.  The  Convention  of  1888  had  been  a  battleground 
of  Interests:  the  Convention  of  1892  was  a  battleground 
of  jealous  and  warring  leaders,  and  I  desire  to  show  now 
how  great  was  the  change  made  by  this  difference. 

Before  long  it  was  clear  that  the  Blaine  campaign  was 
being  muddled.  Senator  Wolcott,  a  man  of  excellent  ability, 
made  the  common  and  in  this  instance  the  fatal  error  of 
overrating  Mr.  Piatt's  political  skill.  Everything  was  left 
to  Piatt's  judgment,  as  the  man  most  interested  in  Har- 
rison's defeat,  and  Piatt  seemed  never  to  know  which  way  to 
turn.  Like  all  New  York  politicians  he  had  no  knowledge 
nor  conception  of  the  inhabitants,  the  methods,  or  the  ideas 
of  the  interior  of  the  country.  In  his  own  organization  to 
say  **  Mr.  Piatt  wants  this,"  was  enough.  I  suppose  he 
could  hardly  understand  that  the  Westerners  had  a  totally 
different  manner  of  proceeding.  As  a  rule  the  Western 
people  had  never  been  fond  of  the  conspicuous  or  arbitrary 
boss.  They  did  not  care  very  much  for  imperial  decrees. 
What  they  wanted  was  organization  and  enthusiasm.  When 
they  succeeeded  in  seeing  Piatt,  which  was  not  often,  he 
always  offended  them  and  usually  taught  them  to  despise 
his  little  ideas  and  little  methods.  They  were  built  on  a 
different  plan,  much  broader  and  more  sturdy. 

Beyond  a  doubt  when  the  leaders  of  the  Harrison  oppo- 
sition came  to  Minneapolis  they  had  the  situation  in  their 
grasp  and  in  two  days  they  had  lost  it.  They  let  the 
Harrison  men  win  delegate  after  delegate  from  under  their 
noses.  Mr.  Piatt  could  swing  most  of  the  New  York  dele- 
gation and  Mr.  Quay  most  of  the  Pennsylvania  delegation 
and  Mr.  Wolcott  many  delegates  from  the  West,  but  to 
these  loyal  followers  the  opposition  never  added  a  vote. 

213 


How  Harrison  Was  Nominated 

The  Harrison  men  had  the  audacity^  the  skilly  and  the 
energy ;  and  what  was  more  important^  they  had  the  money. 
They  went  into  the  market  and  bought  what  was  necessary. 
There  has  been  but  one  other  National  Convention  in  our 
time  wherein  delegates  were  bought  so  openly  and  so  gen- 
erally. I  put  on  the  badge  of  a  New  York  alternate  and 
went  one  afternoon  among  the  colored  brethren,  and  on  the 
mere  supposition  that  I  was  close  to  Mr.  Piatt  I  had  offers 
for  several  blocks  of  votes  ranging  from  $100  to  $300  a 
head.  The  thing  was  done  on  street  corners  as  if  it  were 
as  legitimate  as  buying  apples. 

I  will  give  two  examples  of  the  Piatt  tactics.  The  Con- 
vention assembled  and  appointed  the  committee  on  creden- 
tials and  adjourned.  Many  contests  were  to  be  decided 
by  this  committee  and  every  contest  would  determine  a 
certain  number  of  votes  for  Blaine  or  for  Harrison.  Some 
of  the  contests  were  obscure  and  badly  tangled:  little  was 
known  of  them.  Half  an  hour  after  adjournment  I  was 
coming  out  of  the  New  York  headquarters  when  I  met  an 
old  friend  of  mine,  the  editor  of  a  Detroit  newspaper  and 
a  staunch  Republican,  going  in.  He  said  in  an  excited 
way: 

"Where's  Piatt?" 

I  said: 

**  I  haven't  the  slightest  idea,  but  he  isn't  here.  I've 
been  looking  for  him.    No  one  seems  to  know  where  he  is." 

*'  Well,  give  us  some  help  in  this  if  you  can,"  and  he 
handed  me  a  paper.  It  was  a  list  of  the  contests  before 
the  credentials  committee,  with  the  names  of  the  opposing 
delegates.  **  Michigan  put  a  Blaine  man  on  the  committee," 
my  friend  went  on,  **  and  now  he  doesn't  know  in  every  case 
which  of  these  contestants  are  Blaine  men  and  which  are  for 
Harrison,  so  he  doesn't  know  which  to  vote  for.     He  has 

219 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

asked  in  the  committee  as  much  as  he  dares  and  can't  find 
out,  so  he  has  sent  out  for  help.    Now  which  is  which  ?  " 

Naturally,  I  had  no  information  on  that  subject,  but  I 
sent  my  friend  to  a  place  where  I  thought  he  might  learn 
to  his  advantage.  Nothing  came  of  the  search  and  the 
Michigan  man  (with  others,  no  doubt,  of  Blaine  sympathies) 
voted  to  seat  Harrison  delegates. 

The  other  instance  fell  within  the  same  day  when  we 
learned  that  Piatt  had  divided  the  opposition  strength  by 
bringing  out  William  McKinley  as  a  third  candidate.  When 
that  was  known  it  was  apparent  to  all  men  that  the  game 
was  up,  for  the  news,  as  was  inevitable,  decided  all  the 
hesitating  delegates.  It  was  the  palpable  confession  of 
weakness,  and  they  lost  no  time  in  climbing  aboard  the 
Harrison  machine.  Mr.  Platt*s  last  hope  was  to  prevent 
a  nomination  on  the  first  ballot,  when  it  was  believed  the 
Harrison  strength  would  go  to  pieces.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  Mr.  Piatt  never  knew 
within  seventy-five  votes  how  many  delegates  he  had.  The 
time  for  nominations  came  on,  Mr.  Wolcott  in  a  speech  of 
great  force  and  feeling  presented  Mr.  Blaine's  name.  Major 
McKinley  was  brought  out,  and  Harrison  won  easily  on  the 
first  ballot.  Mr.  Piatt  went  home  sore  but  no  wiser,  and 
those  that  used  to  attend  his  Sunday  afternoon  sessions  at 
the  Oriental  Hotel  by  the  seashore  remember  perfectly  well 
that  vision  of  him  sulking  in  his  tent.  They  also  remember 
other  things.  Considering  Mr.  Piatt's  mental  make-up  it 
was  impossible  that  he  should  not  view  with  satisfaction  the 
signs  of  Mr.  Harrison's  approaching  defeat  at  the  polls, 
and  equally  impossible  that  he  should  not  reveal  what  he 
felt. 

Emmons  Blaine  was  at  the  Convention  working  for  his 
father  as  four  years  before  he  had  worked  against  him. 

220 


How  Harrison  Was  Nominated 

But  the  strange  Blaine  story  was  to  have  there  still  an- 
other and  more  tragic  chapter.  It  was  while  he  was  in 
Minneapolis  thus  engaged  that  Emmons  Blaine  incurred 
the  ptomaine  poisoning  that  killed  him.  His  brother  Walker 
had  died  two  years  before.  Except  that  he  wore  no  beard 
and  his  hair  was  prematurely  gray  Emmons  looked  very 
much  like  his  father  in  his  father's  prime.  He  had  the 
like  sallow  skin  and  piercing  eyes_,  a  large  and  handsome 
face  like  his  father's,,  the  same  magnetism  in  his  manner. 
Another  figure  much  more  prominent  in  the  politics  of  his 
day  disappeared  at  the  same  time.  James  B.  Husted^  long 
speaker  of  the  New  York  assembly,  was  a  delegate  at  the 
Convention.  He  ate  something  that  disagreed  with  him, 
and  Chauncey  Depew  recommended  a  well  known  and 
simple  old  family  medicine  for  stomach  troubles,  usually 
efficacious.  But  Mr.  Husted's  malady  was  far  deeper  than 
even  he  suspected  and  the  next  word  we  had  of  him  he 
was  dead.  There  was  something  rather  fateful  in  his 
passing.  In  1881  when  Piatt  had  followed  Roscoe  Conkling 
in  resigning  from  the  United  States  Senate  and  with 
Conkling  was  seeking  re-election  and  vindication  at  Albany, 
it  was  chiefly  Husted  that  utterly  crushed  Piatt's  hopes 
and  weakened  Conkling's  chances.  For  it  was  Husted  that 
stood  on  the  famous  step-ladder  placed  at  the  door  of  Piatt's 
room  in  an  Albany  hotel ;  it  was  Husted  that  peered  through 
the  transom,  and  it  was  Husted  that  reported  what  he  had 
seen.  Strange  chance  that  the  man  that  had  once  brought 
Piatt  to  political  ruin  should  now  die  in  his  service!  For 
at  Minneapolis  Husted  was  one  of  Piatt's  most  devoted 
lieutenants. 

Mr.  Blaine's  own  and  truly  marvelous  career  went  through 
similar  transformations.  At  one  time  he  was  the  leader 
of  the  Half  Breeds,  one  of  the  fiercely  warring  factions 

221 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

into  which  the  Republican  party  was  split  after  1877.  At 
another  time  he  was  the  candidate  of  his  party  and  forced 
even  the  hostile  faction  to  bow  to  him.  And  again  he 
appeared  as  a  faction  leader^  but  this  time  leading  the 
remnant  of  the  old  faction  that  once  he  had  bitterly  opposed. 

I  have  heard  men  say  that  the  feud  between  the  Half 
Breeds  and  Stalwarts  that  once  rent  the  Republican  party 
asunder  began  in  the  personal  antagonisms  and  ambitions 
of  Blaine  and  Conkling.  Lately  I  read  in  a  book  that 
the  beginning  of  the  row  was  the  National  Convention  of 
1880.  As  a  matter  of  fact  its  real  origin  was  in  the  Southern 
policy  of  President  Hayes.  A  large  part  of  the  South 
earnestly  desired  to  disfranchise  the  Negroes  and  nullify  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments  to  the  Constitution. 
So  long  as  General  Grant  was  President  he,  to  a  great 
measure,  prevented  this  design  by  a  policy  of  national 
supervision  and  by  keeping  bodies  of  troops  scattered  about 
the  South.  When  Hayes  became  President  he  believed 
that  the  Southern  States  should  be  left  to  care  for  their 
own  affairs  in  their  own  way  and  withdrew  the  last  shadow 
of  national  interference.  This  split  his  party.  The  Stal- 
wart wing,  led  by  Roscoe  Conkling  and  Oliver  P.  Morton, 
bitterly  attacked  the  President's  policy;  what  were  called 
the  Half  Breeds,  led  by  Blaine,  supported  it.  The  natural 
antipathy  between  Blaine  and  Conkling  widened  the  divi- 
sion.   It  was  not  so  much  jealousy  as  an  instinctive  hatred. 

The  statement  that  when  Blaine  was  the  Republican  can- 
didate for  President  in  1884  he  had  the  support  of  his 
party  requires  some  qualification.  Mr.  Conkling  had  defi- 
nitely and  finally  retired  from  politics  and  was  diligently 
practicing  law;  but  a  certain  group  of  his  followers  was 
still  irreconcilable.  While  the  campaign  was  in  progress 
there  appeared  in  the  New  York  World  a  series  of  remark- 

222 


How  Harrison  Was  Nominated 

able  letters  attacking  Blaine  and  analyzing  his  career. 
They  were  signed  "  A  Stalwart  Republican."  The  literary 
merit  of  these  letters  was  unusual ;  the  elevated  and  luminous 
style  made  men  think  of  Junius;  and  much  speculation 
arose  as  to  their  authorship.  As  all  these  matters  now 
belong  to  a  by-gone  epoch,  and  have  passed  into  history, 
it  can  do  no  harm  to  record  the  fact  that  the  letters  were 
written  by  Roscoe  Conkling,  who  had  become  the  World's 
chief  counsel. 

Mr.  Blaine  had  great  shrewdness  and  extraordinary  en- 
dowments as  a  politician  but  one  is  obliged  to  admit  that 
if  his  methods  strongly  attracted  some  men  they  as  strongly 
repelled  others.  I  once  asked  Frank  Hatton  why  he  felt 
such  bitter  personal  animosity  to  Blaine  and  in  answer  he 
told  me  this  anecdote. 

In  1876  Hatton  was  the  editor  of  the  Burlington  (Iowa) 
Harvheye.  He  had  never  met  Blaine  and  had  no  personal 
knowledge  of  him,  but  in  the  hot  pre-convention  campaign 
of  that  year,  merely  from  preference  and  conviction,  the 
Harvheye  supported,  if  I  remember  right,  Oliver  P.  Morton. 

Two  years  later  Hatton  was  on  a  railroad  train  in  western 
Iowa  and  Blaine  came  aboard.  He  learned  in  some  way 
that  Hatton  was  a  passenger,  sought  him  out,  and  greeted 
him  like  a  long-lost  brother.  He  sat  down  by  Hatton's 
side,  he  put  his  arm  around  Hatton's  waist,  he  seized 
Hatton's  hand,  he  interlaced  his  fingers  with  Hatton's,  and 
then  he  said  in  oily  tones: 

"  Now,  Frank,  my  dear  fellow,  I  want  you  to  tell  me  why 
you  did  not  support  me  in  1876." 

Hatton  said  that  the  action  filled  him  with  a  disgust  and 
a  distrust  of  which  he  could  never  rid  himself. 

He  admitted,  however,  that  Blaine's  powers  of  memory 
were  among  the  most  wonderful  of  which  we  have  any 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

record.  He  said  that  while  he  and  Blaine  were  talking,  tHe 
train  stopped  at  a  station  and  two  farmers  entered  the  car. 
Blaine  gave  one  swift,  sharp  glance  at  them,  sprang  from 
his  seat,  and  with  outstretched  hand  went  to  greet  them 
both,  calling  out  their  names  and  asking  questions  that 
seemed  to  show  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  personal 
life  of  each.  Hatton  listened  to  all  this,  supposing  the  men 
to  be  Blaine's  old,  warm,  personal  friends.  He  learned 
from  them  afterward  that  all  Blaine  knew  of  them  was  that 
they,  with  about  fifty  other  men,  had  once  been  introduced  to 
him  when  he  came  through  their  town  campaigning.  But 
I  doubt  if  in  his  long  career  Mr.  Blaine  ever  forgot  a  face 
he  had  noted,  a  name  he  had  heard,  or  a  fact  about  any 
human  being,  if  once  that  fact  had  been  clutched  by  the 
tentacles  of  his  prodigious  memory. 

The  fate  that  hung  over  him  was  so  strange  that  for  the 
presidency  to  which  he  aspired  all  his  life  he  was  beaten 
by  a  ridiculous  accident.  It  was  Dr.  Burchard's  **  Rum, 
Romanism,  and  Rebellion  "  speech  that  caused  Mr.  Blaine 
to  lose  New  York  State  and  the  election ;  without  it  he  was 
absolutely  certain  of  both,  for  he  was  defeated  by  only 
1,500  votes.  That  was  a  fluke  and  the  fact  that  anybody 
knew  of  Burchard's  alliteration  was  another  fluke.  A  few 
Presbyterian  clergymen  met  Mr.  Blaine  at  the  Fifth  Avenue 
Hotel  in  New  York  to  extend  their  good  wishes.  Dr.  Bur- 
chard  was  moved  to  make  a  little  speech.  Not  a  newspaper 
thought  the  event  important  enough  to  cover.  A  news 
agency  sent  a  man  that  covered  this  with  several  other 
assignments  and  happened  to  catch  Dr.  Burchard's  phrase, 
A  moment  later  and  the  thing  would  never  have  been  re- 
ported and  James  Gillespie  Blaine  would  have  been  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States. 

But  to  return  to  our  1892,  that  he  should  have  joined 

224 


How  Harrison  Was  Nominated 

hands  with  Platt^  the  chief  lieutenant  and  close  adherent 
of  his  life-long  relentless  enemy,  the  residuary  legatee  of 
the  old  Stalwart  contingent,  struck  many  persons  as  in- 
explicable. I  know  not  wherein  it  was  more  inexplicable 
than  many  other  features  of  his  career;  than  his  perform- 
ance with  the  Mulligan  letters,  for  instance,  or  the  story 
of  his  connection  with  Hocking  Valley.  The  truth  is  the 
man  was  never  to  be  understood  nor  accounted  for  on  any 
ordinary  standard  of  human  conduct.  To  give  but  one 
illustration,  take  this  Hocking  Valley  incident.  Mr.  Blaine 
long  maintained  the  closest  relations  with  the  Chicago 
Tribune,  which  was  his  principal  and  always  loyal  supporter 
in  the  West.  The  Hocking  Valley  Railroad  is  an  enterprise 
with  an  early  history  of  shady  character.  A  time  came  when 
it  was  under  heavy  fire  from  a  court  investigation.  Mr. 
Blaine  was  accused  of  being  interested  in  it.  He  publicly 
denied  that  he  was  or  had  ever  been.  But  some  time  before 
he  had  written  to  the  managing  editor  of  the  Tribune,  asking 
that  the  paper  refrain  from  any  attack  upon  Hocking  Valley 
as  he  was  heavily  interested  in  the  property.  For  such 
things  as  these  I  know  of  no  explanation  except  that  Mr. 
Blaine's  memory,  so  phenomenal  about  other  matters,  was 
as  strangely  defective  about  all  affairs  of  business. 

Eight  months  after  his  last  defeat  he  died.  He  had 
been  wasting  away  for  years  and  dropped  asleep  from  weak- 
ness. I  think  his  life  had  been  overwrought.  There  has 
been  no  more  singular  figure  in  American  history.  Viewing 
together  such  extraordinary  incidents  as  those  of  the  Mulli- 
gan and  Fisher  letters  that  would  have  driven  any  other 
man  from  public  life,  viewing  Mr.  Blaine's  connection  with 
questionable  or  vicious  enterprises,  viewing  the  fortune  he 
built  from  life-long  public  service  at  small  salaries,  remem- 
bering his  lack  of  any  evidence  of  a  definite  policy  or  settled 

225 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

convictions,  the  places  he  held  and  the  following  he  won  will 
seem  to  the  future  investigator  hopelessly  mysterious.  Such 
a  one  will  find  indisputable  evidence  that  Mr.  Blaine  exer- 
cised very  great  influence  upon  millions  of  his  countrymen, 
but  will  never  be  able  to  tell  how,  nor  why,  nor  to  what 
end. 


^?6 


XIII 

HOW    CLEVELAND   WAS   NOMINATED   IN    1892 

The  Democratic  Convention  of  1892  was  held  in  Chicago 
and  nobody  that  attended  it  ever  forgot  his  experiences 
there.  From  the  beginning  it  had  been  turned  over  as  a 
venture  in  profits  to  a  gang  of  greedy  speculators,  and  they 
seemed  to  have  determined  to  establish  a  new  record  in 
quick  fortune  making.  They  erected  on  the  lake  front 
between  Washington  and  Madison  Streets  a  huge  temporary 
wooden  structure  that  they  were  good  enough  to  call  a 
"  wigwam."  By  any  other  name  it  would  have  been  as 
vile.  It  was  so  flimsily  built  that  it  shook  in  every  wind, 
the  roof  leaked,  the  interior  arrangements  were  of  the 
crudest,  and  so  badly  planned  that  we  gave  sincere  thanks 
whenever  a  session  ended  without  disaster.  But  the  mur- 
derous place  seated  about  22,000  persons,  and  the  specu- 
lators easily  disposed  of  all  the  seats.  At  the  first  session 
they  must  have  taken  in  more  than  enough  to  pay  all  their 
expenses  and  the  rest  of  the  performances  represented  clear 
and  enormous  profits.  Some  persons  objected  to  making 
of  the  National  Convention  of  a  great  party  a  three-ringed 
circus  and  side  show,  but  I  am  confident  that  such  a  concep- 
tion never  penetrated  the  minds  of  the  Chicago  speculators. 
It  was  too  delicate. 

To  add  to  our  discomforts,  the  week  in  which  the  Con- 
vention fell  was  marked  by  some  of  the  most  violent  weather 
Chicago  ever  experienced.     It  was  about  the  summer  soj- 

^27 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

stice,  the  thunder  storms  chased  one  another  across  the 
prairies,  the  rain  fell  in  a  way  I  have  never  witnessed  out- 
side of  the  tropics,  the  lightning  was  sharp,  the  thunder 
terrific,  and  between  these  violences,  which  assailed  us  day 
and  night,  the  air  was  hot,  heavy,  and  depressing.  Add  to 
this  a  tense  political  situation  now  drawing  to  its  crisis, 
the  passions  of  men  more  fiercely  aroused  than  at  any 
other  Convention  of  these  times,  the  issue  doubtful,  accurate 
light  upon  it  hard  to  get,  the  leaders  too  much  involved 
to  have  any  perspective,  new  methods  and  new  influences 
at  secret  work  that  none  of  us  could  gauge,  the  eyes  of  the 
country  turned  upon  the  spot  and  the  mind  of  the  country 
demanding  information  that  could  not  well  be  furnished, 
and  one  may  apprehend  a  strenuous  week.  So  far  as  we 
of  the  Herald  were  concerned  we  had  still  other  troubles, 
for  the  arrangements  for  our  quarters  had  met  with  some 
disaster  and  we  were  forced  to  take  shelter  in  an  unfinished 
hotel  where  was  no  service  of  any  kind,  and  to  get  food 
as  we  could  in  the  overcrowded  city  restaurants ;  often  at  a 
great  waste  of  invaluable  time.  One  of  the  ablest  members 
of  the  staff  fell  ill  and  left  us  crippled,  for  no  one  could 
have  foreseen  the  immense  amount  of  work  the  Convention 
was  to  entail. 

The  political  situation  was  both  exciting  and  puzzling. 
A  very  strong  movement  was  on  foot  to  nominate  Mr. 
Cleveland,  who,  having  been  defeated  by  Harrison  in  1888, 
would  ordinarily  have  been  regarded  as  out  of  the  race. 
Most  of  his  genuine  following  was  in  the  Middle  and 
Western  states,  where  he  was  regarded  as  a  tariff  reformer 
and  a  victim  of  the  Tariff  Interests  in  1888.  There 
was  also  a  movement  for  him  in  the  East,  but  as  it  was 
plainly  manufactured  and  not  genuine  no  one  could  tell 
how  effective  it  might  be,  although  upon  its  management 

228 


How  Cleveland  Was  Nominated  in  1892 

depended  in  great  measure  the  choice  of  the  Conven- 
tion. 

For  still  other  reasons  the  contest  was  of  unusual  interest. 
Every  mind  with  any  turn  for  philosophic  reflection  must 
have  been  interested  at  times  to  observe  the  ease  and  cer- 
tainty with  which  the  thing  we  call  public  opinion  may 
be  directed  or  even  manufactured  by  powers  sufficiently 
adroit.  We  had  between  1890  and  1892  a  good  illustration 
of  this  curious  art.  In  1888^  following  his  tariff  message, 
Mr.  Cleveland  had  not  been  generally  popular  as  a  candi- 
date for  the  presidency.  His  own  party  gave  him  a  most 
perfunctory  support  and  the  powerful  attacks  upon  him  in 
the  campaign  were  never  once  repelled  with  any  vigor. 
One  of  the  strongest  reasons  for  his  unpopularity  ought 
never  to  be  forgotten  by  those  that  attempt  to  gauge  causes 
and  effects  in  public  affairs,  and  yet  it  was  a  thing  to 
make  every  American  hide  his  head  with  shame.  A  vile 
slander  and  falsehood  to  the  effect  that  Mr.  Cleveland  beat 
his  young  and  beautiful  wife  was  deliberately  concocted, 
industriously  circulated,  and  strange  as  it  may  seem,  widely 
credited.  Nobody  dared  to  print  the  monstrous  lie;  it 
traveled  from  individual  to  individual  across  the  continent. 
The  President  of  the  United  States  could  never  deal  in  the 
courts  with  such  a  matter,  circulated  thus  by  word  of  mouth ; 
the  friends  that  knew  the  facts  were  few  and  their  denials 
had  little  weight;  and  the  fabrication  went  its  way  prac- 
tically unchecked. 

Readers  of  history  may  recall  that  similarly  subtle  and 
vicious  weapons  have  been  turned  against  most  men  that 
have  attacked  Vested  Interests.  Mr.  Cleveland's  attack 
was  upon  the  Interests  entrenched  in  the  protective  tariff, 
and  he  seems  to  have  shared  in  consequence  a  somewhat 
common  fate.     The  tide  turned  miraculously  in  1890  and 

229 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

from  that  time  on  Mr.  Cleveland's  star  was  in  the  ascen- 
dant. He  had  meantime  done  not  one  thing  himself  except 
retire  to  Wall  Street  and  engage  in  corporation  law  practice, 
but  the  attacks  upon  him  ceased  and  he  was  in  a  certain  part 
of  the  press  raised  industriously  toward  the  position  of  a 
popular  hero;  few  men,  it  may  be  believed,  having  smaller 
claim  to  that  eminence. 

To  understand  all  this  it  is  necessary  to  revert  to  the  fact 
that  the  election  of  1888  was  the  last  presidential  election  to 
be  carried  by  the  Manufacturing  Interests  of  the  country. 
A  new  force  had  arisen  far  overshadowing  the  Manufactur- 
ing Interests  and  destined  to  absorb  them.  The  dominating 
power  now  was  the  great  banks  and  financial  institutions, 
even  then  steadily  passing  into  one  control.  This  power 
had  determined  to  make  Mr.  Cleveland  President.  It  cared 
little  about  minor  changes  in  the  tarijff  and  was  perfectly 
willing  that  anybody  should  shout  his  head  off  for  Free 
Trade  so  long  as  its  own  business  was  properly  looked 
after.  Whoever  will  reflect  upon  the  relations  between 
Wall  Street  and  the  second  Cleveland  administration  will 
see  at  once  how  true  this  is. 

The  political  side  of  these  new  Interests  was  directed 
by  William  C.  Whitney,  a  man  whose  extraordinary  abilities, 
resolution,  and  achievements  seem  to  me  to  have  been  but 
poorly  recorded.  In  power  to  dominate  men  I  have  never 
known  his  equal;  he  bullied  them,  towered  over  them  with 
his  big  frame,  big  voice  and  abnormally  long  head,  out- 
thought  them,  outgeneraled  them,  terrifying  some  and  fas- 
cinating others  in  a  way  that  seemed  unaccountable.  I 
remember  that  once  a  New  York  managing  editor  got  a 
story  in  which  Mr.  Whitney's  name  was  involved  and  called 
him  on  the  telephone  at  his  Long  Island  residence  to  ask 
him  about  it. 

S80 


How  Cleveland  Was  Nominated  in  1892 

*'  Are  you  going  to  print  that  story  ?  '*  Mr.  Whitney  in- 
quired when  he  had  heard  the  outline. 

**  Why^  yes,"  said  the  editor.    "  We  purpose  to  print  it.'* 

There  was  a  long  silence  and  then  Mr.  Whitney  said: 

**  I  should  advise  you  not  to  publish  that  story/*  and 
rang  off. 

That  was  all  he  said^  but  the  managing  editor  came  out 
of  the  booths  wiping  the  perspiration  from  his  brow,  and 
ordered  the  story  killed.  He  said  that  the  significance  that 
Mr.  Whitney's  voice  threw  into  that  one  short  sentence  was 
overpowering  and  something  he  could  never  describe. 

Mr.  Whitney  had  charge  of  the  Cleveland  forces  at  the 
Chicago  Convention;  he  was  the  general  on  the  field  and 
assuredly  he  shook  up  all  the  traditional  tactics  and  gave 
to  the  wisest  something  new  to  think  of.  No  man  at  any 
National  Convention  has  ever  performed  a  feat  so  difficult 
nor  commanded  with  such  skill,  audacity,  and  uniform  suc- 
cess. To  make  his  performance  the  more  wonderful,  he 
had  never  been  much  in  politics^  and  had  no  experience 
as  a  political  leader.  Yet  he  made  the  old  hands  look 
like  babies,  a  curious  illustration  of  the  fact  that  tradition 
and  precedent  do  but  hamper  the  man  that  gives  heed  to 
them. 

The  opposition  to  Cleveland's  nomination  was  very  bitter, 
particularly  from  Tammany  Hall,  which  hated  him  with 
a  fervor  not  to  be  described  otherwise  than  as  savage,  and 
which  openly  proclaimed  that  if  nominated  he  could  never 
carry  the  state  of  New  York.  This  was  equivalent  to 
saying  that  he  could  not  be  elected,  and  was  regarded  also 
as  equivalent  to  saying  that  Tammany  Hall  would  knife 
him.  As  it  had  contributed  effectively  to  his  defeat  in 
1888,  this  veiled  threat  had  great  weight  elsewhere  and 
the  Cleveland  cause  was  looked  upon  from  the  start  as 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

exceedingly  doubtful.  Tammany  and  the  Anti-Cleveland 
Democrats  managed  the  State  Convention  to  suit  themselves, 
pledged  the  delegation  irrevocably  to  David  Bennett  Hill, 
Cleveland's  old-time  rival  and  enemy,  selected  able  men  to 
be  delegates  and  instructed  them  to  fight  Cleveland  to  the 
end.  In  that  delegation  sat  Richard  Croker,  Governor 
Flower,  Bourke  Cockran,  William  F.  Sheehan,  and  other 
veteran  commanders,  all  determined  that  Cleveland  should 
be  defeated. 

When  the  Convention  met,  Cleveland  had  the  largest 
number  of  instructed  delegates  but  fell  far  short  of  enough 
to  nominate.  In  National  Conventions  of  the  Democratic 
party  a  two-thirds  vote  is  necessary  to  nominate  a  candidate 
for  the  presidency.  All  the  experts  agreed  that  if  Cleveland 
were  not  nominated  on  the  first  ballot,  he  could  not  possibly 
be  nominated  at  all,  and  in  that  event  some  dark  horse, 
probably  a  man  from  the  West,  would  be  selected. 

Mr.  Whitney's  task,  therefore,  was  to  gain  enough  of  the 
uninstructed  or  hostile  delegations  to  win  on  the  first  ballot. 
Otherwise  he  was  lost.  And  he  must  do  this  winning 
between  the  time  when  the  delegations  arrived  in  Chicago 
and  the  hour  of  the  first  ballot.  The  Herald  had  made  a 
very  careful,  impartial  canvass  of  the  uninstructed  delega- 
tions and  none  of  us  could  see  where  he  had  a  practical 
chance  to  win.  Such  also  was  the  deliberate  judgment  of 
the  generals  opposed  to  him,  who,  after  looking  over  the 
field  upon  their  arrival,  assured  us  confidentially  that  Cleve- 
land was  beaten. 

Mr.  Whitney  established  his  headquarters  at  the  Richelieu 
Hotel,  where  he  took  two  large  suites,  and  went  at  the 
gigantic  task  before  him.  I  was  assigned  to  cover  him 
and  the  Cleveland  campaign  generally,  and  I  soon  found 
the  assignment  of  extraordinary  interest.    Whether  an  in- 

232 


How  Cleveland  Was  Nominated  in  1892 

experienced  hand  could  make  progress  against  such  famous 
leaders  was  one  absorbing  topic^  but  soon  Mr.  Whitney 
himself  far  surpassed  it.  From  the  beginning  his  tactics 
astonished  and  vastly  entertained  us.  Apparently  he  did 
everything  in  the  open^  had  nothing  to  conceal,  never 
thought  it  worth  while  to  assume  the  air  of  mystery  and 
importance  that  the  average  politician  delights  to  wear, 
and  told  us  every  night  exactly  where  he  stood  as  the  result 
of  the  day's  work.  As  in  the  famous  instance  of  Bismarck, 
because  he  told  the  truth  everybody  thought  he  was  lying 
and  possibly  he  was  but  practicing  a  master  stroke  of  art, 
but  I  had  and  have  an  impression  that  he  saw  through  and 
scorned  the  tricks  of  the  regular  politicians  and  purposed 
to  fight  in  his  way,  not  theirs. 

He  had  a  small  private  room  in  one  of  his  suites  and 
when  he  was  closeted  there  with  somebody  he  was  not  to 
be  seen,  but  at  other  times  he  stood  squarely  on  his  two 
feet  and  saw  everybody  that  came  in.  After  a  day  or 
two  he  arranged  with  us,  to  save  his  time  and  ours,  that 
we  should  come  to  him  every  night  at  half-past  nine  and 
he  would  tell  us  whatever  we  wished  to  know.  Every  night, 
therefore,  at  half -past  nine,  he  stood  before  a  circle  of 
us  answering  every  question  that  was  put  to  him,  answering 
it  promptly  and  with  every  appearance  of  frankness.  He 
had  on  these  occasions  a  manner  that  struck  me  as  exceed- 
ingly well  chosen.  He  was  courteous  and  good  natured,  but 
never  ingratiating;  he  preserved  an  absolute  dignity  and 
perfect  seriousness;  and  while  giving  all  desired  informa- 
tion in  a  rapid,  orderly  manner,  he  seldom  volunteered  any 
remarks  of  his  own.  He  framed  his  sentences  with  business- 
like directness,  never  adorned  them  with  exaggeration,  never 
made  a  misstatement  to  us,  never  boasted,  and  spoke  always 
like  a  man  that  was  telling  the  truth  because  he  did  not 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

think  it  was  worth  his  while  to  tell  anything  else.  I  will 
give  a  sample  of  these  regular  evening  conversations.  We 
would  begin  about  like  this: 

'*Well,  Mr.  Whitney,  what  did  you  do  to-day?" 

**  To-day,  we  won  the  Nevada  delegation,  six  votes,  and 
the  Idaho  delegation,  six  votes." 

**  How  do  you  mean,  won  them  ?  " 

"  They  are  now  pledged  to  vote  in  the  Convention  for 
Grover  Cleveland." 

**  On  the  first  ballot,  I  suppose." 

"  On  the  first  ballot  and  on  every  other  ballot." 

"  Were  those  uninstructed  delegations }  " 

"  Yes." 

**  Did  they  have  any  preference  when  they  came  here }  " 

**  Some  of  the  delegates  favored  Mr.  Boies  and  some 
thought  well  of  Mr.  Hill." 

"And  now  they  will  vote  for  Mr.  Cleveland?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Why  were  they  opposed  to  Cleveland  in  the  first 
place  ?  " 

**  They  doubted  if  he  could  carry  New  York." 

**  What  do  they  think  about  that  now?  " 

**  They  know  now  that  he  can  and  will." 

**  In  spite  of  Tammany  Hall?  " 

**  Tammany  Hall  will  support  Mr.  Cleveland  in  the 
election." 

"  How  many  votes  have  you  secured  so  far  ?  " 

**  Five  hundred  and  twenty- four.  We  had  five  hundred 
and  twelve  yesterday,  and  these  two  delegations  bring  the 
total  to  five  twenty-four." 

"What  do  you  purpose  to  do  to-morrow?" 

"  To-morrow  I  have  engagements  with  the  delegations 
from  North  Dakota  and  Arizona."     And  so  on.     Once  the 

234 


How  Cleveland  Was  Nominated  in  1892 

late  Frank  Mack,  who  represented  the  Associated  Press, 
asked  a  question  that  Mr.  Whitney  could  not  answer.  He 
smiled  a  flickering  little  smile,  gone  in  an  instant,  said 
very  quietly,  **  You  should  have  been  a  lawyer,"  and  then 
explained  why  he  could  not  answer. 

At  first  we  thought  all  this  was  exaggerated  or  ill-based 
and  from  Mr.  Whitney  went  hot  foot  to  the  delegations 
he  had  named  to  see  if  he  had  told  the  truth  about  them. 
They  always  cheerfully  admitted  that  he  had,  and  that  they 
had  joined  the  Cleveland  forces.  Previously,  perhaps,  they 
had  expressed  to  us  very  doubtful  or  even  hostile  opinions 
about  Mr.  Cleveland.  Now  they  were  certain  that  he  was 
the  best  man  and  would  surely  win.  As  to  the  logic  that 
had  persuaded  them  of  their  previous  errors  I  may  say 
that  some  of  us  entertained  suspicions,  but  we  never  could 
verify  them.  All  we  knew  was  that  a  delegation  would 
come  to  Mr.  Whitney's  private  room  and  be  closeted  with 
him,  perhaps  all  day.  In  the  evening  Mr.  Whitney  would 
announce  that  delegation  as  having  been  added  to  his  string 
of  fish  and  the  delegation  itself  would  joyously  confess  that 
such  was  the  fact.  Meantime  the  Hill  people  fumed  and 
proclaimed,  but  one  could  see  that  they  were  beginning  to 
be  perplexed  and  worried. 

On  the  day  that  the  Convention  assembled  Mr.  Whitney 
lacked  more  than  one  hundred  of  his  necessary  total  and 
if  the  nomination  had  been  made  that  day  Cleveland  would 
never  have  been  chosen  and  in  all  probability  the  history 
of  the  next  few  years  would  have  been  very  diiferent.  But 
the  iron  man  at  the  Richelieu  toiled  on.  The  next  day  he 
had  undeniably  reduced  the  margin  between  him  and  vic- 
tory, and  still  he  was  beaten.  The  next  day  saw  further 
inroads  into  the  opposition  and  yet  not  enough.  On  the 
day  that  the  nomination  was  to  be  made,  he  lacked^  accord- 

235 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

ing  to  our  figures,  twenty-two  votes  of  enougH  to  nominate 
on  the  first  ballot,  and  the  opposition  tried  to  feel  relieved 
and  confident. 

The  Convention  assembled  at  two  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon of  a  wild  day.  One  fierce  storm  after  another  rolled 
over  the  wretched  wigwam,  sometimes  with  howling  winds 
that  threatened  momentarily  to  bring  down  the  whole  flimsy 
structure  upon  us,  sometimes  with  terrifying  lightning  and 
thunder  that  reduced  the  audience  to  awe-struck  silence, 
sometimes  with  periods  in  which  a  sickly  green  light  would 
shine  in  the  skies  and  the  air  below  be  stifling  with  heat. 
Rain  fell  in  a  deluge,  the  jerry-built  roof  admitted  it  in 
torrents  over  the  region  reserved  for  the  press,  and  those 
of  us  that  were  without  umbrellas  to  raise  sat  for  hours 
in  unimaginable  discomfort. 

The  nervous  tension  among  the  22,000  spectators  was 
tightly  drawn  that  afternoon,  for  the  chances  of  a  terrible 
disaster  were  too  plain  for  the  most  careless  to  ignore. 
The  building  was  as  badly  planned  as  badly  built;  the  exits 
were  criininally  inadequate,  the  aisles  too  few  and  too 
narrow,  and  the  galleries  without  sufficient  stairways. 
When  a  tremendous  squall  would  shake  the  whole  rotten 
edifice  or  when  a  bolt  of  lightning  fell  close  by  one  could 
not  but  speculate  on  one's  chances  of  surviving  a  fire  in 
the  building  or  its  collapse.  The  noise  of  the  thunder,  rain, 
and  wind,  and  the  abnormal  gloom  of  the  heavens,  seemed 
to  augment  these  forebodings  until  I  should  not  have  been 
surprised  to  see  anything  happen. 

The  newspaper  men  sat  in  a  great  pen,  with  rising  seats 
backed  up  against  a  low  partition  at  the  right  of  the  plat- 
form. No  exit  was  provided  for  them  at  the  rear  but 
beyond  the  partition  was  a  chief  passageway  to  the  front 
doors.    Consequently  in  the  event  of  a  panic  they  were  in  a 

236 


How  Cleveland  Was  Nominated  in  1892 

place  of  peculiar  danger.  About  four  o'clock  came  a  storm 
of  unusual  ferocity.  In  the  midst  of  it.  Governor  Flower, 
who  was  chairman  of  the  New  York  delegation,  arose  from 
his  seat  on  the  floor  and  moved  down  the  aisle  to  consult 
with  another  Hill  delegation.  As  he  did  so  the  electric 
light  that  was  suspended  from  the  roof  directly  over  his 
chair,  fell  with  a  resounding  crash  upon  the  spot  where  a 
moment  before  he  had  been  sitting,  and  where,  if  he  had  not 
arisen,  it  would  have  killed  him  instantly. 

Everybody  heard  the  crash  but  few  persons  knew  the 
cause,  and  at  the  sound,  panic  seized  the  over-tensioned 
audience.  Thousands  of  men  sprang  for  the  narrow  exits, 
which  the  next  moment  were  choked  and  impassable.  Other 
thousands  on  the  main  floor  began  to  scramble  over  the 
reporters'  tables  to  get  at  the  passage  beyond.  To  tell 
the  truth,  I  gave  myself  up  for  lost,  and  had  no  expectation 
but  that  in  another  moment  I  should  be  lying  on  the  floor 
crushed  beneath  the  heels  of  a  frantic  mob.  Men  were 
already  running  over  the  reporters'  desks.  I  had  an  im- 
pression as  swift  as  lightning  of  a  great  sea  of  wild  and 
frightened  faces  rushing  toward  the  place  where  I  sat.  A 
young  man  with  mouth  open  and  eyes  of  zoological  terror 
stood  on  the  desk  before  mine,  one  foot  raised  within  a 
foot  of  my  face.  And  then  in  some  mysterious  way  the 
panic  wave  suddenly  stopped,  the  crowd  paused,  turned 
about  to  look,  and  slowly  retreated.  What  checked  its 
flight  I  do  not  know:  certainly  no  effort  of  the  chairman, 
William  L.  Wilson,  who,  physically  unable  to  cope  with 
such  a  crowd,  was  at  all  times  unheeded  and  rather  a 
pathetic  figure.  But  the  narrowness  of  the  escape  was 
testified  to  in  the  white  faces  I  saw  about  me,  my  own, 
no  doubt,  as  white  as  any.  Mrs.  Alexander  Sullivan,  who 
represented  one  of  the  Chicago  dailies  and  sat  nearly  be- 

237 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

hind  me,  fainted  when  the  crowd  began  to  run  over  the 
desks. 

The  Convention  worked  its  way  over  the  necessary  pre- 
liminaries, all  minds  intent  upon  the  great  battle  now  near 
at  hand.  The  nominating  and  seconding  speeches  were 
made,  one  after  another.  I  have  often  wondered  at  this 
dreary  farce,  which  seems  on  the  whole  the  most  ridiculous 
employment  known  to  man  and  the  least  defensible  of  all 
our  Convention  customs.  If  we  except  Mr.  Bryan's  **  Cross 
of  Gold'*  speech  in  the  Convention  of  1896,  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  not  one  vote  was  ever  affected  by  this  species  of 
eloquence.  It  is,  in  fact,  mere  wind-jamming  and  wasted 
effort.  On  this  occasion,  as  in  every  other  Convention  in 
my  long  experience,  nobody  wanted  to  hear  most  of  the 
tiresome  splutterers  that  were  put  forward  to  present  the 
various  favorite  sons,  but  even  if  the  desire  had  been  uni- 
versal it  could  not  have  been  gratified ;  since  in  that  fright- 
ful place  only  a  voice  of  exceptional  quality  could  carry 
to  the  farthest  limits.  Bourke  Cockran,  indeed,  because  of 
his  fame,  his  impressive  figure,  and  his  unusual  gifts  as  an 
orator,  was  listened  to,  but  in  every  other  case  the  speaker 
soon  found  himself  shouting  and  gesticulating  to  a  vast 
crowd  that  heard  not  one  word  he  said,  but  was  cheerfully 
engaged  in  making  a  din  of  its  own.  It  is  a  very  odd  fact 
that  in  the  face  of  such  an  impossible  condition  all  of  these 
orators  wiU  regularly  persist  to  the  end  of  their  prepared 
harangues.  One  of  them  on  this  occasion  spoke  for  more 
than  an  hour  in  an  uproar  so  great  that  even  the  stenogra- 
phers directly  in  front  of  him  could  hardly  hear  him. 

Hour  after  hour,  these  tiresome  performances  went  on, 
the  crowd,  with  all  its  sporting  instincts  aroused,  impatient 
for  the  vote  that  would  decide  the  race,  the  delegates  under 
the  strain  of  an  intense  excitement,  the  newspaper  men 

238 


How  Cleveland  Was  Nominated  in  1892 

watching  the  clock  and  wondering  whether  the  vote  would 
come  in  time  for  the  morning  papers.  No  recess  was  taken 
for  dinner;  without  intermission  the  orators  labored  on. 
The  roll  of  states  was  being  called  alphabetically;  as  each 
state  was  named  the  orators  in  its  delegation  had  the  right 
to  arise  and  nominate  a  candidate  or  second  the  nomination 
of  one  already  in  the  race.  So  the  leaden-footed  hours 
(I  never  comprehended  that  classic  phrase  before)  dragged 
on^  the  rain  falling  outside^  the  wind  howling,  the  wigwam 
trembling,  and  a  cataract  descending  upon  the  exhausted 
correspondents.  Now  and  then  an  unusually  loud  peal  of 
thunder  would  roll  by  and  leave  in  its  wake  an  instant  of 
frightened  silence,  and  then  the  uproar  in  the  hall  would 
begin  again. 

Midnight  came  and  the  roll  call  was  uncompleted.  The 
men  in  charge  for  the  New  York  morning  newspapers  began 
to  fidget.  There  seemed  to  be  no  chance  of  getting  a  vote 
until  most  of  the  editions  should  be  printed.  Soon  after 
two  o'clock  the  last  state  was  called,  the  last  shriek  of 
unheard  eloquence  ceased,  and  the  secretaries  prepared  for 
the  first  ballot. 

We  knew  that  at  the  moment  Mr.  Cleveland  lacked  at 
least  twenty  votes  of  enough  to  nominate  him,  and  the 
question  was  whether  Mr.  Whitney's  tactics  would  suffice 
to  get  those  twenty  votes  before  the  end  of  the  roll  call. 
There  was  one  delegation  from  a  region  that  I  will  call 
Promisedland  that  was  in  a  way  of  pivotal  importance.  It 
was  claimed  confidently  by  the  Anti- Cleveland  men,  and 
assigned  to  an  Anti-Cleveland  column,  but  concerning  it 
were  afloat  vague  rumors  that  made  us  doubtful.  It  cast 
not  many  votes,  but  we  generally  understood  that  if  it 
cast  these  for  Cleveland  enough  others  would  swing  over 
to  make  his  nomination  sure. 

239 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

The  secretaries  went  down  the  list^  reading  the  names 
of  the  states  and  recording  the  votes  as  they  were  announced 
from  the  floor  by  the  delegation  chairmen.  Every  state  fell 
out  according  to  predictions.  New  York  was  called  and 
amid  thunderous  applause  cast  its  solid  vote  for  Hill, 
Promisedland  was  close  at  hand.  A  certain  man  walked  out 
upon  the  floor  and  bent  over  in  earnest  conversation  with 
the  boss  of  the  Promisedland  delegation.  A  member  of 
the  Herald  staff  that  happened  to  be  in  a  favorable  position 
to  observe^  declared  that  words  passed  between  these  men 
and  also  something  else.  Colonel  Tim  Williams^  Governor 
Flower's  private  secretary^  who  had  worked  with  me  on  the 
old  Commercial  Advertiser,  was  also  watching  this  scene. 
Ordinarily  one  of  the  most  reserved  and  self-contained  of 
men  he  now  lost  control  of  himself  and  rushed  out  upon  the 
floor  of  the  Convention,  shouting  objections.  At  that  mo- 
ment Promisedland  was  called,  the  chairman  arose  and  an- 
nounced the  vote  of  the  state  for  Cleveland,  and  in  the 
deafening  applause  that  for  several  minutes  rolled  through 
the  hall  the  protests  of  Colonel  Williams  and  other  Hill  men 
were  unheard,  and  the  vote  was  recorded.  After  that  the 
Whitney  programme  went  through  without  a  hitch  and  Mr. 
Cleveland  was  triumphantly  nominated.  The  day  had 
broken  when  tired,  wet,  and  desperately  hungry  we 
straggled  out  of  that  dreadful  place.  Most  of  us  had  been 
on  duty  there  all  day  and  all  night  without  food  or  rest  or 
change  of  position. 

That  afternoon  the  Convention  reassembled  to  name  the 
candidate  for  Vice-President.  The  favorite  for  the  place 
was  Governor  Horace  Boies  of  Iowa.  He  had  been  a 
strong  candidate  for  the  Presidential  nomination  and  the 
expectation  was  that  by  acclamation  he  would  be  nominated 
for   Vice-President.      To   the   general   surprise   Governor 

240 


How  Cleveland  Was  Nominated  in  1892 

Boies's  managers  absolutely  declined  to  allow  the  use  of 
his  name.  Their  reason  was  not  disclosed  but  was  ascribed 
to  resentment  and  disappointment  over  the  loss  of  the  first 
place  on  the  ticket.  This  was  the  common  belief,  but  it 
was  most  unjust  and  unfounded.  The  real  reason,  unknown 
at  the  time  outside  of  the  Iowa  leaders,  was  that  Governor 
Boies,  though  of  a  powerful  mind  and  great  abilities,  had 
one  defect  in  his  mental  or  physical  make-up,  I  know  not 
which.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  remember  faces.  In 
all  other  respects  his  memory  was  unusual;  names,  facts, 
figures,  statistics,  precedents,  statutes,  his  mind  gripped 
instantly  and  relentlessly.  He  could  make  an  argument 
on  the  tariff  question,  bristling  with  statistics,  and  never 
once  be  at  loss  for  a  fact  or  a  reference.  But  he  could 
not  remember  faces;  a  man  introduced  many  times  to 
him  would  still  be  a  stranger  in  his  ken  unless  he  could 
fix  in  his  mind  some  detail  of  that  man's  dress,  or  beard; 
his  watchguard,  very  likely,  or  his  coat.  While  he  was 
Governor  of  Iowa  this  difficulty  was  obviated  and  concealed 
by  having  always  somebody  about  him  that  would  whisper 
into  his  ear  the  name  for  which  he  was  struggling.  It 
was  not,  in  fact,  of  much  importance  while  he  was  governor 
but  as  presiding  officer  of  the  United  States  Senate  it  would 
have  been  an  impossible  handicap.  While  he  was  a  most 
capable  executive  he  would  have  been  a  disastrous  failure 
as  a  chairman  and  his  friends  for  that  reason  alone  with- 
drew his  name. 

The  choice  fell  upon  General  Adlai  E.  Stevenson,  of 
Bloomington,  Illinois,  a  Kentuckian  by  birth,  and  a  fine 
type  of  the  old-style  of  rugged  manhood. 

What  the  country  desired  next  to  know  was  what  Tam- 
many Hall  would  do.  Their  own  favorite  had  been  routed, 
the  man  they  hated  and  abhorred  had  been  chosen.    Fol- 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

lowing  precedent  it  was  generally  believed  tHat  Tammany 
would  knife  Cleveland  at  the  polls,  and  the  disgusted  braves 
on  the  way  home  made  no  secret  that  such  was  their  in- 
tention. I  remember  in  particular  some  vicious  interviews 
that  they  gave  out  at  Detroit  in  which  they  defied  the 
Democrats  of  the  country  to  elect  the  ticket.  It  was  a 
fiercely  roaring  tiger  that  went  home  in  June  but  it  was 
a  mild,  gentle,  and  well-trained  beast  that  marched  up  to 
the  polls  in  November  and  voted  solidly  for  Grover  Cleve- 
land. Gilroy,  the  Tammany  candidate  for  Mayor,  ran  not 
three  hundred  votes  ahead. 

Over  this  marvel  the  political  experts  pondered.  If  they 
could  have  looked  a  little  into  the  future  they  would  not 
have  been  astonished.  It  was  the  Whitney  hand  that  tamed 
the  savage  beast — the  Whitney  hand,  which  controlled  the 
enormous  traction  interests  of  the  city  and  was  upheld  by 
the  banks,  the  sugar  trust,  and  some  other  influences  since 
famous  in  history.  Mr.  Whitney  had  good  reason  for  his 
confidence.  Such,  indeed,  was  his  habit ;  and  in  this  instance 
he  knew  Tammany  Hall  as  he  knew  his  own  hands  and  he 
knew  exactly  what  strings  being  pulled  would  reduce  it  to 
absolute  subjection.  He  let  the  braves  roar  and  flourish 
their  scalping  knives  and  perform  their  ghost  dances  until 
they  had  sufficiently  relieved  their  anguished  minds.  Then, 
he  gently  but  firmly  pulled  the  strings.  The  fact  was  that 
he  controlled  the  great  traction  Interests  of  New  York 
City  and  close  union  with  those  Interests  was  indispensable 
to  the  welfare  of  Tammany  and  its  chieftains.  Too  many 
contracts  were  at  stake  for  Tammany  contractors,  too  much 
financial  support  was  at  stake  for  Tammany  leaders,  too 
many  jobs  were  at  Mr.  Whitney's  disposal.  In  his  calm, 
masterful,  ruthless  way  he  had  only  to  make  a  few  sug- 
gestions to  Mr.  Croker  and  the  whole  Tammany  pack  set 

242 


How  Cleveland  Was  Nominated  in  1892 

resolutely  to  work  to  pile  up  the  vote  for  Grover  Cleve- 
land. 

It  was  the  first  appearance  of  a  close  alliance  that  lasted 
many  years  and  decided  the  fate  of  more  than  one  contest. 
Likewise  that  election  saw  the  first  appearance  of  what  has 
since  been  the  greatest  influence  in  national  affairs.  For 
back  of  Mr.  Whitney^  supporting  him  and  even  going  be- 
yond him,  was  the  great  Financial  Interest  that  ruled  abso- 
lutely the  second  Cleveland  administration,  worked  the 
*'  endless  chain  "  of  bond  issues,  used  its  power  to  make 
more  money  and  the  money  it  made  to  gain  more  power  and 
make  more  money,  until  it  rose  to  its  present  gigantic  and 
overshadowing  influence. 

Mr.  Whitney  at  Chicago  and  elsewhere  was  its  city  editor, 
charged  with  the  task  of  securing  Mr.  Cleveland's  nomina- 
tion. I  doubt  if  by  any  chance  another  man  could  have 
been  found  so  able  for  that  task.  In  politics  as  in  business 
he  was  the  most  resourceful,  capable,  ready  man  of  his 
times.  In  neither  line  of  activities  were  his  methods  fully 
disclosed.  We  learned  something  of  his  amazing  command 
over  the  machinery  of  high  finance  when  after  his  death 
the  New  York  Traction  monopoly  that  he  had  formed  went 
to  wreck.  But  men  seemed  to  hesitate  even  then  to  believe 
what  the  revelations  indicated.  Similarly  at  Chicago,  none 
of  us  ever  wrote  or  suggested  the  conclusions  we  had  formed 
in  our  own  minds.  It  was  as  well.  To  this  day  I  know 
not  what  passed  between  the  Cleveland  man  and  the  boss 
of  the  Promisedland  delegation.  Perhaps  the  transaction 
was  one  in  dried  prunes.  I  judged  from  the  demeanor  of 
Colonel  Williams  and  others  of  the  Hill  contingent  that  they 
did  not  think  the  conversation  referred  to  dried  prunes. 
Whatever  may  have  been  its  subject  it  seemed  to  be  much 
esteemed  by  the  delegation.     Perhaps  it  was,  after  all,  a 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

matter  of  dried  prunes  and  the  delegation  was  very  fond 
of  dried  prunes. 

Mr.  Whitney  was  never  much  of  a  talker^  and  yet  his 
arguments  behind  closed  doors  there  at  the  Hotel  Richelieu 
must  have  been  of  a  powerful  order  of  logic,  judging  by 
the  results.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  at  least  they  were 
not  dry  arguments.  On  my  way  back  to  New  York  Mr. 
Whitney's  private  secretary  was  a  passenger  in  the  same 
sleeper.  He  had  with  him  a  fair  sized  valise  filled  to  its 
capacity  with  little  pink  slips  of  paper.  These  I  recog- 
nized as  bar  checks  of  the  Hotel  Richelieu.  They  were 
signed  with  Mr.  Whitney's  name.  The  secretary's  business 
was  to  count  these,  and  total  the  amount  they  represented. 
It  was  a  long  task. 


244 


XIV 

TRAVELS  WITH  THE  CHOLERA  FLEET 

I  AM  not  sure  that  philosophers,  psychologists,  and  the 
like  have  thought  enough  about  a  thing  that  may  be  called 
infectional  hysteria.  Any  man  that  was  on  the  city  staff 
of  a  New  York  newspaper  late  in  the  summer  of  1892 
would  be  likely  to  have  such  a  doubt. 

Cholera  was  epidemic  in  Europe  that  summer.  Cholera 
had  often  been  epidemic  in  Europe.  This  year  it  was 
worse  than  usual  and  in  more  places.  It  was  bad  in  the 
Mediterranean  ports,  where  it  was  a  familiar  visitor,  and 
it  was  bad  in  the  Baltic  ports,  where  it  had  not  been 
known  for  years.  Modern  sanitation  has  since  robbed  this 
disease  of  most  of  its  terrors  (for  civilized  communities  at 
least),  but  in  those  days  it  seemed  to  possess  for  many 
persons  the  very  name  of  fear.  The  London  newspapers, 
which,  in  spite  of  virtuous  protestations,  are  as  sensational 
as  any  others,  printed  daily  columns  of  minutiae  about  the 
panic  and  the  dreadful  conditions  supposed  to  exist  in  the 
cities  of  the  inferior  Latins  and  Teutons,  and  many  Amer- 
ican journals  dutifully  paid  cable  tolls  on  this  rubbish  that 
they  might  have  the  pleasure  of  reprinting  it.  The  result 
being,  I  suppose,  that  cholera  got  on  the  world's  nerves 
and  a  part  of  the  public  came  to  watch  the  so-called  advance 
of  the  disease  as  of  some  deadly  and  irresistible  enemy. 

Suddenly  such  New  Yorkers  as  were  of  this  order  of 
mind  awoke  to  the  fact  that  the  enemy  was  at  their  doors. 

245 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

An  incoming  steamship  was  obliged  to  report  that  a  case 
of  cholera  had  developed  among  its  passengers  on  the 
voyage.  The  vessel  was  stopped  at  Quarantine^  and  sent 
to  the  Lower  Bay  with  all  on  board  for  detention  and 
observation.  This  was  following  the  practice  usual  and 
familiar  in  such  cases;  but  for  some  reason  fright  seized 
upon  the  community^  or  a  part  of  it.  Almost  every  summer 
at  least  one  ship  had  arrived  with  a  similar  report  and  had 
been  similarly  treated^  and  the  city  had  heeded  not  in  the 
least.  But  on  this  occasion  the  thing  was  interpreted  to 
mean  that  we  were  imminently  threatened  with  the  worst 
that  had  befallen  Naples  or  Hamburg,  and  a  frantic  demand 
went  up  that  we  should  be  guarded  with  extraordinary  pre- 
cautions. 

After  a  time  arrived  another  steamer  with  a  cholera  case ; 
then  another.  These  were  held  in  the  same  manner.  Soon 
the  Lower  Bay  began  to  be  spotted  with  steamers  flying  the 
yellow  flag  of  quarantine  and  held  for  the  health  ofiicers' 
inspection  and  observation. 

A  grave  situation  now  arose.  The  recognized  cholera 
cases  were  taken  from  the  ships  and  placed  in  the  ex- 
cellent quarantine  hospitals  on  Hoffman  and  Swinburne 
Islands,  in  the  upper  part  of  the  Lower  Bay.  But  until 
at  least  twelve  days  should  have  elapsed  since  the  last 
case  had  been  removed  from  a  ship  no  other  person  on  that 
ship  was  held  to  be  free  from  the  danger  of  infection. 
The  result  was  that  the  hundreds  of  passengers  were  pris- 
oners on  these  steamers  thus  detained;  their  numbers  were 
steadily  increasing  as  more  ships  came  in ;  and  the  question 
that  confronted  the  authorities  was  what  to  do  with  all 
these.  It  was  the  busiest  time  of  the  year  for  west  bound 
traffic;  the  rush  of  home-coming  American  tourists  was  at 
its  height;  on  some  days  three  crowded  ships  would  be 

246 


Travels  with  the  Cholera  Fleet 

added  to  the  yellow-flagged  fleet  in  the  Lower  Bay.  The 
steamship  companies  were  under  a  tremendous  pressure  to 
get  their  vessels  unloaded  and  returned  to  the  other  side; 
under  quarantine  regulations,  not  a  passenger  nor  a  pound 
of  freight  could  be  discharged.  Thus  the  sailing  lists  were 
dislocated  and  a  loud  wail  was  reported  from  European 
ports,  where  thousands  of  panic  stricken  Americans,  strug- 
gling homeward,  were  confronted  with  the  prospect  of  in- 
definite delay,  probably  in  a  place  where  the  cholera  was 
daily  growing  worse.  To  the  bitter  complaints  of  these 
the  merchants  added  sterner  protests,  for  they  could  not 
get  ships  to  load  and  the  machinery  of  business  was  being 
ungeared.  On  the  other  hand  the  health  authorities  and 
the  great  majority  of  the  community  demanded  the  most 
rigid  enforcement  of  the  quarantine  regulations. 

The  United  States  Government,  through  its  Treasury 
department,  had  charge  and  supervision  of  the  steerage 
passengers  until  they  should  be  passed  through  its  Ellis 
Island  doorway.  It  now  stepped  in  and  dealt  with  their 
plight  by  creating  on  government  ground,  at  Sandy  Hook, 
a  crude,  temporary  refuge  called  Camp  Low,  to  which  all 
steerage  passengers  were  removed  for  observation.  This 
was  as  far  as  the  government  could  go  and  it  had  no  effect 
upon  the  general  situation.  The  first  and  second  cabin  pas- 
sengers still  remained  upon  the  quarantined  steamers;  the 
government  could  do  nothing  for  them ;  and  until  they  could 
be  released  they  tied  up  the  steamships. 

Many  of  these  passengers  were  returning  business  men 
that,  held  thus  helpless  prisoners  within  sight  of  the  city, 
believed  that  in  their  absence  they  would  be  ruined;  some 
had  notes  to  meet  or  the  fall  trade  to  care  for;  some  were 
lawyers  that  had  cases  to  try,  in  their  minds  of  vital  im- 
portance; some  were  actors  and  actresses,  announced  to 

247 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

open  their  engagements  upon  dates  close  at  hand  or  already- 
passed;  some  were  judges  whose  vacations  had  expired; 
and  some  were  prominent  politicians  concerned  in  the  cam- 
paign^  which  was  presidential.  Nearly  all  had  friends, 
relatives,  partners,  managers,  or  associates  that  daily- 
mobbed  the  steamship  oflSces  and  clamored,  threatened,  and 
implored  without  avail. 

The  greater  newspapers  covered  this  news  field  day  and 
night  with  tugs,  for  no  one  could  place  a  limit  on  the  possible 
sensation  any  arriving  steamer  might  bring  to  port.  Cap- 
tains of  these  vessels  uniformly  sought  to  conceal  from  the 
public  the  facts  about  any  cases  of  cholera  that  might  have 
developed  upon  the  voyage,  which  was  exactly  the  news 
we  were  hiring  the  tugs  to  obtain.  This  added  to  the  work 
a  spice  of  excitement,  for  some  of  the  captains  took  long 
chances  in  the  means  they  used  to  elude  or  to  drive  away 
the  newspaper  tugs  that  hovered  about  them  as  they  plowed 
along  the  channels.  I  have  seen  the  Herald's  tug  sticking 
like  a  leech  alongside  while  a  steamer*s  hose  deluged  it  with 
filthy  and  infected  water  from  the  Elbe  and  a  reporter  in 
oil-skins  and  a  sou'wester  stood  upon  the  top  of  the  pilot 
house  and  gathered  facts  from  passengers  that  meantime 
were  fighting  with  petty  officers  for  the  right  to  speak. 
This  made  an  interesting  scene,  but  one  that  with  much 
repetition  might  in  time  become  tiresome  to  the  participants. 

It  is  an  odd  reflection  to  me  now  that  in  those  days  the 
machinery  of  each  newspaper  office  was  organized  to  get 
exclusive  news,  the  staff  of  each  newspaper  was  in  every 
way  urged  and  inspired  to  get  exclusive  news,  the  first 
object  of  the  commanders  and  reporters  alike  was  to  get 
exclusive  news,  and  most  of  the  exclusive  news  that  was 
secured  and  printed  came  to  the  net  by  accident  or  good 
luck  and  without  planning,  designing,  or  winning.     For 

248 


Travels  with  the  Cholera  Fleet 

instance  every  newspaper  crew  in  the  tugs  that  were  now 
scurrying  around  the  Lower  Bay  desired  to  get  exclusive 
news  of  the  arrival  of  a  vessel  with  a  cholera  story.  In 
the  daytime  an  incoming  steamer  moved  up  the  channel 
like  a  circus  wagon  rumbling  up  Broadway,  in  the  sight 
of  all  observers;  but  at  night  the  case  was  very  different. 
At  night  a  steamer  could  slip  in  and  anchor  in  Gravesend 
Bay  or  the  Horseshoe  and  no  one  but  the  observer  at  the 
Hook  light  be  the  wiser,  for  once  inside  it  had  a  wide,  dark 
inland  sea  wherein  to  hide. 

By  mere  chance,  two  of  us  on  the  Herald  tug,  William  O. 
Inglis  and  I,  were  amateur  pilots  and  fairly  equipped  with 
steamship  knowledge.  I  had  usually  taken  my  vacations 
in  the  shape  of  cruises  on  pilot  boats,  both  of  us  knew  many 
pilots  intimately,  and  both  knew  the  channels  of  the  harbor. 
To  this  day  I  believe  I  can  run  either  the  old  Main  Ship 
or  Gedney's  Channel  in  anything  drawing  less  than  twenty 
feet  and  not  take  the  ground — or  anyway  not  more  than 
once.*  Being  thus  familiar  with  the  ways  of  incoming 
vessels,  Inglis  and  I  knew  that  the  one  safe  spot  in  which 
to  wait  for  all  of  them  was  just  inside  the  point  of  Sandy 
Hook  where  the  channel  sweeps  within  a  short  distance  of 
the  shore.  Whatever  course  a  steamer  might  take  after  it 
had  passed  this  spot,  every  steamer  must  traverse  here 
the  one  path.  So  the  Herald  tug  lay  just  inside  the  point 
of  the  Hook,  caught  every  steamer  that  came  in,  and  one 
night  speared  the  one  best  beat  of  the  season. 

It  was  a  big  German  bound  from  Hamburg  and  on  its 
voyage  more  than  twenty  cases  of  cholera  had  developed, 
so  rapidly  that  terror  had  seized  the  passengers  and  they 
had  begged  the  captain  first  to  put  into  Cape  Race,  and 

*  Technical  pleasantry;  put  in  for  the  exclusive  delectation  of 
pilots.    There  was  no  Ambrose  Channel  in  1892. 

249       . 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

then  into  Halifax;  to  which  his  brief,  pungent  reply  would 
have  made  at  any  time  an  episode  of  surpassing  interest. 

All  this  we  discovered  later.  As  the  steamer  straightened 
up  around  the  point  of  the  Hook  and  fell  into  her  bearings 
by  the  beacons,  we  pounced  down  upon  her  like  pirates 
from  their  lair,  ranged  alongside,  and  hailed  the  bridge. 
No  answer.  We  called  for  the  captain,  we  called  for  the 
officer  in  charge,  we  even,  at  a  venture,  called  for  the  purser. 
No  answer.  We  could  see  officers  on  the  bridge  looking 
down  on  us,  but  that  captain  must  have  been  well  coached 
before  he  left  port;  not  a  soul  would  answer.  We  slipped 
astern  a  little,  where  from  the  second  cabin  ports  a  row 
of  heads  projected,  and  there  we  began  to  accumulate  the 
details  of  our  story.  It  was  taking  the  best  possible  shape 
in  the  capable  hands  of  a  young  man  that  with  his  head 
thrust  through  a  port  was  giving  us  vivid  word  pictures 
of  conditions  on  that  ship,  when  the  door  behind  him  flew 
open,  two  petty  officers  leaped  into  his  stateroom,  grabbed 
him  each  by  a  leg,  and  jerked  him  aboard  so  unceremoni- 
ously that  for  an  instant  he  swung  in  their  hands  with 
head  down  and  feet  in  the  air  as  if  they  were  shaking 
a  pair  of  old  trousers.  The  next  instant  the  port  was 
closed  and  screwed  down  hard.  As  we  slipped  sternward 
this  operation  aboard  the  steamer  kept  even  pace  with  us 
until  not  a  port  was  left  open.  At  the  same  time  officers 
went  along  the  decks  driving  passengers  back  from  the 
rails. 

We  had  gathered  a  good  story  but  not  quite  enough.  I 
thought  it  possible  the  pilot  that  was  bringing  the  steamer 
in  might  be  one  I  knew.  We  ranged  back  under  the  bridge 
and  yelled  for  him.  Pilots  are  state  officers  and  independent 
of  steamship  captains.    This  one  came  to  the  side  in  answer 

to  the  hail  and  it  was  Harry  S ,  a  blond  Norwegian 

250 


Travels  with  the  Cholera  Fleet 

with  whom  I  had  sailed  thousands  of  miles.  He  cared  as 
little  about  the  captain's  notions  of  publicity  as  he  cared 
for  a  ten-knot  breeze.  When  he  had  anchored  the  boat 
in  the  Horseshoe  he  leaned  over  the  railing  and  gave  us 
everything  he  had  gathered  in  the  twenty-four  hours  he 
had  been  aboard,  for  in  those  days  were  no  steam  pilot 
boats  hugging  the  bar,  but  schooners  that  often  cruised 
eastward  as  far  as  Sixty-three.  He  knew  what  we  wanted 
and  delivered  it  and  there  was  nothing  better  in  all  that 
year. 

But  to  come  back  to  this  grievous  situation  in  the  Lower 
Bay,  where  the  steamships  were  getting  thick,  here  in  the 
midst  of  it,  came  in  the  great  Normannia,  crack  boat  of 
her  day,  loaded  to  the  guards,  and  went  to  anchor  with  the 
rest.  Her  steerage  passengers  were  removed  to  Camp  Low, 
but  about  seven  hundred  prisoners  of  the  first  and  second 
cabins  stamped,  swore,  or  idled  about  her  decks.  The  need 
of  some  of  them  that  they  should  communicate  with  the  shore 
was  very  urgent,  or  was  believed  to  be.  Morrill  Goddard 
was  then  city  editor  of  the  New  York  World  and  one  of 
the  best  city  editors  that  paper  ever  had,  or  any  other. 
He  introduced  a  novelty  by  appearing  in  person  on  the 
World's  tug  to  direct  his  staff  on  the  place  of  battle.  In 
the  goodness  of  his  heart  he  allowed  some  of  the  distressed 
Normannians  to  cast  letters  upon  the  deck  of  the  World's 
tug  and  subsequently  mailed  these  letters.  I  cite  as  evi- 
dence of  the  irrational  state  of  the  public  mind  the  fact 
that  when  the  community  learned  of  the  generous  action 
of  the  World's  representatives  a  savage  complaint  arose. 
There  was  not  the  slightest  chance  that  the  letters  the 
World's  tug  took  to  the  city  could  be  infected  or  the  source 
of  any  danger.  No  case  of  cholera  had  developed  among 
the  cabin  passengers,  all  of  whom  were  perfectly  well. 

251 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

Nevertheless  thousands  of  thoughtless  persons  took  fright 
at  the  suggestion,  the  authorities  were  deluged  with  com- 
plaints, the  World  was  vehemently  denounced;  and  the 
Health  Officer  was  obliged  to  issue  orders  that  not  even 
letters  could  be  taken  from  the  quarantined  steamers.  Poor 
Health  Officer!  Some  public  servants  are  between  two 
fires;  he  was  among  fifty-two,  mostly  of  hysterical  origin. 
In  the  midst  of  all  he  kept  his  head.  On  top  of  the  rest 
he  was  a  brother-in-law  of  Richard  Croker,  the  Tammany 
leader,  and  politics  had  an  active  part  in  the  assaults  that 
were  made  upon  him.  Anything  even  remotely  connected 
with  Tammany  was  fair  game. 

The  steamship  company  that  owned  the  Normannia  had 
imperative  need  of  her  services  and  could  not  ajfford  to  have 
her  tied  up  at  a  time  when  west  bound  traffic  was  at  the 
seasonable  high  tide.  What  to  do  with  these  cabin  pas- 
sengers was  the  crux  of  the  problem;  they  could  not  be 
landed  and  they  could  not  be  carried  back.  The  managers 
of  the  company  went  down  to  a  steamboat  infirmary  at  New 
London  and  dragged  thence  the  ancient  Sound  steamer 
Stonington,  long  out  of  commission  and  partly  dismantled. 
This  antique  relic  they  anchored  in  the  Lower  Bay,  loaded 
it  with  stores,  transferred  to  it  all  the  cabin  passengers, 
and  released  the  Normannia. 

The  second  state  of  these  unfortunate  waifs  was  now 
worse  than  the  first.  Doubtless  the  company  did  the  best 
it  could  under  the  imperative  law  of  profits  that  rules  us 
all;  doubtless  also,  in  such  circumstances,  if  the  Stoning- 
ton had  been  the  grandest  of  all  floating  palaces,  the  pris- 
oner-passengers would  have  complained.  But  the  Ston- 
ington was  not  a  floating  palace;  she  was,  in  fact,  ill 
equipped  for  this  or  any  other  service;  her  arrangements 
were  crude,  the  stores  had  been  hastily  or  carelessly  selected. 

252 


Travels  with  the  Cholera  Fleet 

Long  after  these  episodes  had  passed  from  the  world's 
attention  the  wails  of  her  enforced  guests  arose  upon  the 
air,  telling  of  leaky  decks,  defective  accommodations,  and 
life  sustained  chiefly  on  pilot  bread  and  salt  horse. 

This  was  the  situation,  which,  it  appeared,  no  authority 
was  able  to  relieve.  The  city  government  could  do  nothing; 
the  case  was  beyond  its  jurisdiction.  The  state  government 
could  do  nothing;  the  legislature  was  not  in  session.  The 
national  government  could  do  nothing;  Congress  was  not 
in  session.  No  power  appeared  anywhere  with  authority 
to  act.  The  governor  of  the  state  was  Roswell  P.  Flower 
and  he  took  the  matter  into  his  own  hands.  On  the  shore 
of  Long  Island,  forty  miles  east  of  Sandy  Hook,  was  Fire 
Island;  chiefly  a  long  sand-spit  with  a  light-house  and 
great  rambling  summer  hotel.  With  his  own  funds  Governor 
Flower  bought  the  whole  thing;  except  of  course  the  light- 
house, but  including  the  hotel.  Then  he  ordered  all  cabin 
passengers  on  the  quarantined  steamers  in  the  bay  to  be 
transferred  to  his  hotel.  As  the  steerage  passengers  were 
at  Camp  Low  this  solved  the  problem. 

The  Normannians  were  to  go  first,  because  their  plight 
on  the  Stonington  was  the  least  tolerable.  Within  twelve 
hours,  a  summer  excursion  steamer,  impressed  for  the  pur- 
pose, came  along  and  took  them  aboard  for  Fire  Island. 

Joy  dawned  upon  the  melancholy  prisoners.  Here  was 
the  first  useful  thing  that  had  been  done  in  their  behalf. 

Outside  the  Hook  a  heavy  sea  was  piling  up  before  a 
fierce  northeasterly  wind,  cold  and  cutting.  The  airy,  fairy 
excursion  boat  could  not  be  heated.  She  had  never  been 
built  for  sea-going  and  now  pounded  about  in  a  way  that 
alarmed  such  of  the  passengers  as  were  in  a  condition  to 
take  note  of  her  uneasy  gig-steps.  A  majority  were  sea- 
sick. 

25$ 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

Dark  fell  before  they  reached  the  inlet,  which  is  long  and 
crooked.  No  pilot  appeared  in  answer  to  signals,  the  cap- 
tain dared  not  attempt  the  passage  in  the  dark,  and  the 
steamer  must  needs  return  through  heavy  seas  to  the  old 
moorings  in  New  York  harbor.  Next  morning  another 
attempt  was  made,  the  inlet  was  threaded,  the  weary  ones  of 
the  Normannia  rejoiced  as  they  prepared  to  land  after  so 
many  troubles. 

They  did  not  land.  As  the  steamer  turned  the  last  buoy 
the  shores  about  the  landing  place  were  seen  to  be  crowded 
with  men,  men  with  arms  in  their  hands,  angry,  gesticulating 
men.  The  whole  country  side  from  Far  Rockaway  to  Baby- 
lon had  risen  in  hysteria  and  revolt.  What !  dump  cholera 
upon  them?  Pass  off  upon  the  innocent  rustic  the  cargo 
of  germs  that  had  been  repulsed  from  the  city?  Not  if 
the  innocent  rustics  were  alive  and  aware  of  their  sur- 
roundings. A  kind  of  historical  and  archeological  museum 
of  arms  was  gathered  to  enforce  the  protest;  garrets  were 
ransacked  and  the  scrap-heaps  robbed.  Ducking  guns  and 
heirloom  muskets,  old  army  rifles  and  modern  breech- 
loaders, revolvers  and  pistols,  anything  that  could  be 
charged  with  powder  in  any  expectation  that  it  would  ex- 
plode, adorned  that  seething  throng.  In  curt,  plain  speech 
the  natives  ordered  the  captain  to  get  hence  with  his  load 
and  delay  not,  for  the  steamer  was  not  to  be  allowed  to  land 
anywhere  in  that  neighborhood.  And  they  enforced  these 
remarks  by  pointing  various  weapons,  antique  and  modern, 
at  the  captain's  head. 

There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  obey.  Sadly  the  cap- 
tain turned  about  and  headed  for  the  ocean,  a  part  of  the 
armed  and  aroused  people  following  on  shore  to  make 
sure  that  there  was  no  halting  on  the  way.  So  they  went 
out  once  more  into  the  heavy  sea  and  bitter  wind.    I  passed 

254 


Trcwels  with  the  Cholera  Fleet 

them  in  the  Herald's  tug  and  a  casual  observation  through 
the  glass  convinced  me  that  gloom  sat  heavily  upon  that 
prow.  Soon  after  daybreak  the  harassed  Normannians^  be- 
ing seven  hundred  of  the  most  disgusted  persons  on  earth, 
came  to  anchor  again  in  their  old  berth  in  the  Lower  Bay. 

The  mishap  was  both  grave  and  comical.  It  was  an 
insurrection  against  the  power  of  the  state  and  it  made 
the  plight  of  the  Normannians  still  more  pitiable;  but  on 
the  other  hand  the  idea  of  a  popular  uprising  on  a  pretext 
so  absurd  was  the  occasion  for  endless  jest. 

Governor  Flower  and  the  state  authorities  did  not  view 
lightly  the  armed  resistance  to  their  plans.  On  receipt 
of  the  news,  the  governor  called  out  the  Naval  Reserves 
and  ordered  them  to  Fire  Island,  after  which  the  excursion 
boat  was  to  lumber  once  more  down  the  coast. 

A  day  passed  before  the  Naval  Reserves  could  be  mobi- 
lized and  proceed  to  the  seat  of  war  in  another  craft  of  the 
same  type.  It  was  a  journey  that  proved  too  much  for 
the  seamanship  of  some  of  the  warriors,  whose  inanimate 
forms  stretched  upon  the  steamer's  deck  presented  to  the 
Herald's  tug  a  highly  incongruous  and  uninspiring  sight. 
Nevertheless,  they  got  safely  to  Fire  Island,  quelled  the 
insurrection,  overawed  the  excited  populace,  and  put  the 
hotel  under  guard.  That  night  the  Normannians  once  more 
rolled  their  way  heavily  down  the  coast  and  a  little  after 
daybreak  were  drawn  into  Fire  Island  Inlet. 

But  before  the  landing  place  a  new  misfortune  befell 
the  unlucky  expedition.  Something  went  wrong  with  the 
steamer's  engines:  they  stopped  and  could  not  be  started 
again.  So  for  hours  the  forlorn  company  lay  there,  looking 
helplessly  at  the  shore,  which  was  only  three  or  four  hun- 
dred feet  away.  At  last  we  came  along  in  the  Herald's  tug 
Assistance.      Captain   Joe   Parker   grasped   the   situation, 

255 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

made  fast  alongside^  and  pushed  the  craft  up  to  the  landing. 

And  thus  at  half-past  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon_,  three 
weeks  after  they  had  left  Hamburg,  the  Normannia's  pas- 
sengers were  allowed  to  disembark  upon  the  shores  of  their 
native  land.  They  were  marshaled  into  a  procession,  headed 
by  the  ship's  band  of  German  stewards,  which  with  an 
almost  inconceivable  gravity  formed  at  the  gang  plank, 
playing  a  sprightly  air. 

And  what,  for  a  guess? 

"  Columbia,  the  Gem  of  the  Ocean !  " 

And  still  I  have  heard  persons  assert  that  the  German 
is  lacking  in  humor. 

So  they  went,  marching  two  by  two,  up  the  long  walk 
to  the  hotel,  guarded  by  the  gallant  Naval  Reserves,  and 
glared  at  from  a  distance  by  the  baffled  insurrectionists  of 
Great  South  Bay. 

But,  in  a  way,  the  incident  did  good.  It  made  everybody 
laugh  and  as  I  have  before  observed,  laughter  is  the  sov- 
ereign cure  for  public  hysteria.  The  foolishness  of  the 
Bayside  panic  reflected  the  foolishness  of  the  city's  panic. 
People,  regaining  their  reasoning  powers,  began  to  perceive 
that  with  the  able  watch  and  ward  that  modern  science 
kept  at  the  city's  gates,  the  chance  of  a  cholera  epidemic 
was  about  like  the  chance  of  a  destructive  earthquake  and 
neither  justified  worry. 

But  my  own  recollections  of  this  chapter  in  New  York's 
history  are  still  tinged  with  melancholy  because  of  a  sad 
affair  of  which  I  have  not  told  you.  We  had  on  the  Herald 
staff  at  that  time  an  excellent  young  reporter  widely  noted 
for  the  fashionable  elegance  of  his  attire  and  his  well- 
founded  pride  in  his  personal  pulchritude.  On  the  day 
Camp  Low  was  opened  at  Sandy  Hook  this  beauteous 
youth  entered  the  city  room  arrayed  in  new  fall  garments 

256 


Travels  with  the  Cholera  Fleet 

of  poetic  charm  and  artistic  workmanship.  As  he  came 
jauntily  in_,  swinging  a  sweet  little  cane  and  wearing  a 
flower  in  his  button-hole,  the  city  editor  met  him  with  a 
galvanizing  command  to  hie  him  on  the  instant  to  Camp 
Low.  No  time  was  allowed  to  gather  baggage;  the  boat 
was  on  the  point  of  leaving.  He  entered  the  camp  as  he 
was  and  found  that  he  was  debarred  from  all  means  of 
communication  except  by  telegraph.  A  heart-rending  ap- 
peal that  he  dispatched,  begging  that  a  change  of  clothing 
be  sent  to  him,  went  astray.  He  waited  two  days  and  sent 
another  in  which  he  referred  poignantly  to  his  former  re- 
quest for  relief.  This  duly  arrived  and  was  interpreted  to 
mean  that  he  was  sick  of  his  assignment  and  wished  to 
have  someone  sent  in  his  place.  At  a  time  when  every 
man  on  the  staff  was  working  double  tides  this  idea  did 
not  appeal  strongly  to  the  city  editor,  and  he  allowed  it 
to  go  for  ten  days  without  response.  Then  he  sent  another 
man  on  the  Camp  Low  post.  Young  Fashion  Plate  was  re- 
lieved, but  the  authorities  insisted  upon  disinfecting  his 
clothing  with  superheated  steam,  in  the  which  process  the 
poetic  autumn  garments  were  reduced  to  about  one-half 
of  their  original  proportions.  So  clad,  and  smarting  under 
the  sense  of  injury,  the  young  man  returned  to  the  city, 
and  the  spectacle  of  him  stalking  gloomily  into  the  office 
with  his  sleeves  at  his  elbows  and  his  trousers  stopping 
short  of  his  shoe  tops  is  one  of  the  saddest  I  can  remember. 


257 


XV 


TALES   OP  A   CITY  ROOM   CALIPH 

In  a  remote  corner  of  King's  County  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury ago  was  a  devout  and  worthy  sisterhood  of  a  religious 
order  given  over  to  good  works  and  study  in  seclusion  from 
the  world.  The  house  it  occupied  was  an  old  mansion  in  an 
estate  of  several  acres,  and  being  surrounded  by  almost  a 
thicket  of  trees  the  inmates  seemed  to  dwell  as  far  from 
Broadway  as  if  on  a  Pacific  Island. 

One  day  a  story  broke  that  had  an  end  in  this  quiet  re- 
treat, and  a  Sun  reporter  went  out  there  to  get  it.  The  most 
excellent  woman  at  the  head  of  the  institution  was  aston- 
ished at  his  visit,  but  received  him  courteously  and  put  him 
in  the  way  to  get  the  information  he  needed. 

When  he  was  about  to  go  she  said,  with  an  air  of  slight 
embarrassment,  that  she  had  a  question  she  would  like  to 
ask  him.  Being  encouraged  to  propound  it  she  explained 
that  the  members  of  the  order  lived  away  from  the  world 
and  knew  little  of  its  ways.  They  had  heard  of  reporters 
but  had  never  seen  one;  they  had  now  heard  that  one  was 
present  in  their  house ;  they  had  great  curiosity  to  see  what 
a  reporter  was  like;  and  would  he  mind  a  request  that  he 
should  remain  for  a  few  minutes  until  they  could  march 
through  the  room  and  look  at  him? 

"  Mind  ?  "  said  the  reporter,  "  why,  certainly  not.  In  all 
ways  we  strive  to  please,"  and  he  stood  in  the  hall  while  the 
entire  sisterhood  marched  in  solemn  order  from  the  parlor 

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Tales  of  a  City  Room  CalipJi 

to  the  refectory  and  satiated  their  curiosity  about  the  only 
living  reporter  then  in  a  state  of  captivity. 

I  have  often  observed  a  similar  impulse  among  folks 
whose  way  in  life  is  much  nearer  to  the  great  world.  Be- 
cause of  it  the  dramatists  have  been  sometimes  led  (or  mis- 
led) to  introduce  a  reporter  among  their  characters,  with 
results  truly  calculated  to  make  the  judicious  grieve.  But 
actual  episodes  from  actual  life  in  a  newspaper  office  ought 
to  be  a  legitimate  way  to  lay  bare  the  arcana  of  a  mysterious 
and  interesting  trade,  and  for  that  purpose  I  now  append  a 
few. 

The  Tale  op  Grievous  Dole 

The  attributes  of  cynicism  are  the  traditional  badge  of 
the  reporters*  tribe  and  constitute  the  true  professional 
bearing,  much  as  owlish  and  superhuman  gravity  denote  the 
class-conscious  physician  and  a  fondness  for  useless  dispu- 
tation proclaims  the  callow  attorney.  Only  with  this  dif- 
ference, that  in  the  case  of  the  reporter  the  thing  has  not 
only  good  excuse  but  practical  value.  Indeed,  if  the  re- 
porter doing  general  work,  and  thus  closely  noting  life  as  it 
really  is,  had  no  such  refuge  I  think  he  would  be  so  cut 
within  by  the  things  he  sees  that  he  would  be  unfit  for  his 
trade.  For  the  truth  is,  brethren,  though  we  that  are  well- 
fed  will  never  acknowledge  it,  life  on  this  earth  to  the 
majority  of  earth's  children,  is  but  somber  business.  Three- 
fourths  of  all  the  colors  that  pass  before  a  reporter's  vision 
are  gray;  and  of  the  rest  is  much  scarlet,  which  in  certain 
shades  is  worse.  Cynicism,  or  surface  cynicism  at  least, 
has  its  good  uses  in  this  trade;  I  have  seen  tender-hearted 
women  that  essayed  to  do  general  work  come  in  from  an 
assignment  too  much  unstrung  by  what  they  had  seen  to 

259 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

write  their  stories:  which  is  bad  business:  for  them  and 
for  the  hard-driven  city  editor. 

But  in  sharp  relief  to  the  depressing  influences  of  the 
trade  as  they  were  loosed  upon  the  beginner,  was,  in  my 
time,  the  never-failing  evidence  of  the  essential  goodness  of 
the  human  heart  that  whenever  it  had  a  chance  broke 
through  a  false  system  and  revealed  itself;  a  thing  that 
probably  all  of  us  carried  beneath  our  skins  as  an  antidote 
to  the  necessary  cynicism  wherewith  we  fended  upon  the 
exterior.  For  instance,  no  New  York  newspaper  ever 
appealed  in  behalf  of  any  case  of  distress  or  suffering, 
great  or  small,  without  an  instantaneous  and  generous 
response  from  the  public.  Let  but  a  newspaper  tell  the 
story  of  a  crippled  newsboy  that  needs  an  artificial  leg, 
and  in  a  day  enough  money  will  be  forthcoming  to  pro- 
vide what  is  needed  and  make  a  surplus;  let  it  but  men- 
tion an  old  couple  in  distress  anywhere,  and  the  dollars 
come  dropping  into  its  net  as  from  the  sky:  so  much  readier 
are  men  to  relieve  suffering  than  to  consider  the  cause  of 
it.  I  have  raised  in  this  way  $1,000  in  three  days  for  a 
crippled  widow  whose  only  child  had  been  crushed  in  the 
Park  Place  disaster,  and  never  have  I  heard  of  such  an 
appeal  made  in  vain.  And  I  used  to  wonder,  as  I  saw  this 
ready  generosity,  at  a  kindness  that  was  so  plainly  universal 
and  so  responsive  to  every  acute  need  and  yet  tolerated  a 
condition  of  misery  so  chronic  and  black  as  the  pall  that 
darkened  the  vast  hives  of  the  east  side. 

But  this  habit  of  the  public  to  send  money  to  a  news- 
paper on  every  appeal  for  charity  had  once  an  awkward 
consequence,  as  you  are  now  to  hear. 

When  we  started  the  comic  supplement  of  the  Sunday 
World  (the  first  of  its  kind,  by  the  way)  the  inside  pages 
were  filled  with  jokes,  sketches,  and  humorous  stories  that 

260 


Tales  of  a  City  Room  Caliph 

later  were  discarded  for  the  simpler  efforts  of  the  funny- 
picture  man.  The  bulk  of  this  humor  was  supplied  to  us  by 
the  unfailing  cleverness  of  Roy  McCardle. 

About  that  time  Mary  Mapes  Dodge  and  other  good 
souls  of  her  order  were  earnestly  engaged  in  forming  chil- 
dren's organizations  for  the  protection  of  birds,  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  soul_,  and  the  practice  of  self-denying  ordinances, 
such  as  those  that  would  have  youth  look  upon  the  succulent 
buckwheat  and  still  say  it  nay.  It  occurred  to  McCardle 
that  to  parody  and  ridicule  these  somewhat  pompous  or- 
ganizations would  be  good  fun  for  the  Sunday  paper  and 
he  launched  in  his  columns  a  thing  called  "  The  Kind  Kids* 
Klub,"  in  which  the  fervent  appeals  of  the  admirable  Miss 
Dodge  were  uproariously  burlesqued.  As  part  of  the  labors 
of  Reform  was  even  then  connected  with  the  offertory,  Mr. 
McCardle  invariably  ended  his  address  to  the  Kind  Kids* 
Klub  with  an  appeal  to  his  little  friends  to  send  two  dollars 
to  '*  your  Uncle  Tommyrot.'*  One  of  these  truly  touching 
efforts  still  hanging  upon  my  memory  went  like  this: 
(One  of  the  Kind  Kids  speaks) 

•'  I'm  patient  with  my  parents  ; 
Dumb  beasts,  I  hurt  them  not ; 
And  I  always  send  two  dollars 
To  my  Uncle  Tommyrot. 

To  my  Uncle  Tommyrot, 
To  my  Uncle  Tommyrot, 
Oh  I  always  send  two  dollars 
To  my  Uncle  Tommyrot." 

Which  was   followed  by  a  prose  exhortation    (in  bur- 
lesque) to  the  same  noble  employment. 

This  had  not  proceeded  far  when  we  were  obliged  for  a 

261 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

singular  reason  to  divert  Mr.  McCardle*s  fertile  wit  into 
other  channels.  Persons  began  to  take  his  invitation  seri- 
ously and  to  send  in  two  dollars  each  for  the  benefit  of 
Uncle  Tommyrot.  Some  few  of  these  were  plainly  jesters 
having  fun  on  their  own  account;  but  the  majority  were 
perfectly  serious.  They  had  hastily  gathered  the  idea  that 
the  World  was  raising  one  of  its  customary  funds  for  some 
sufferer  and  they  proceeded  half-mechanically  to  contribute, 
as  a  sleepy  man  in  church  may  wake  up  when  the  collection 
plate  is  passed.  They  would  have  been  astonished  to  know 
what  acute  embarrassment  their  philanthropy  was  causing  in 
the  World  office.  We  had  not  the  slightest  idea  what  to  do 
with  the  money  that  was  coming  in.  We  could  not  keep  it, 
and,  without  obvious  reflection  upon  the  intelligence  of  the 
donors,  we  could  not  return  it ;  besides,  many  of  these,  with 
the  modesty  that  often  attends  charity,  sent  only  initials,  or 
signed  under  the  good  old  disguise  of  "  A  Friend."  Finally 
someone  hit  upon  the  expedient  of  bestowing  the  money 
upon  the  Evening  World's  Christmas  Tree  fund.  First  and 
last  twenty-six  persons  were  reached  by  Uncle  Tommy- 
rot's  sad  plight  and  the  Christmas  Tree  fund  was  enriched 
by  fifty-two  dollars. 

The  Tale  op  Fickle  Fortune 

Patience,  persistence,  courage,  a  study  of  the  work  in 
hand,  are  doubtless  potent  factors  in  a  reporter's  success, 
but  the  wise  man  will  never  deny  that  sheer  luck  has  also 
its  place  there. 

Among  the  brilliant  men  on  the  New  York  Herald's 
staff  twenty-five  years  ago  was  one  that  I  shall  bring 
upon  my  little  stage  under  the  name  of  George  Henry 
Start.     It  was  not  his,  but  it  is  now  quite  good  enough  for 

262 


Tales  of  a  City  Room  Caliph 

these  purposes.  In  his  case  distinction  as  "  one  of  the  ten 
best,"  was  not  subject  to  carping  query  nor  received  with 
raised  eyebrows ;  for  in  an  office  filled  with  able  men  he  held 
for  years  the  record  for  the  longest  weekly  string.  He  was 
also  the  hero  of  many  tales  of  the  city  room,  having  had  his 
share  of  the  kind  of  assignments  that  diversify  life  while 
they  produce  simoleons  when  the  space  is  measured. 

One  of  these  had  to  do  with  old  General  William  Te- 
cumseh  Sherman,  titular  hero  of  the  celebrated  March,  who 
had  among  reporters  a  well-deserved  reputation  of  being, 
for  professional  purposes,  the  toughest  subject  of  the 
times.  The  general  cherished  a  belief  that  he  violently 
detested  all  newspapers  and  newspaper  men,  that  for  his 
part  he  never  had  been  interviewed  and  never  woi;ild  be, 
and  that  fidelity  to  these  convictions,  which  were  quite  er- 
roneous, obliged  him  to  simulate  at  times  a  prodigious  rage 
and  temper.  When  in  New  York  he  was  usually  at  the 
old  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel ;  because  of  his  position  in  the  army 
he  was  often  sought  by  the  newspapers;  and  one  of  his 
diversions  was  to  allow  a  reporter  to  be  sent  up  to  his  room 
and  then  to  harry  him  forth  with  a  terrific  storm  of  invec- 
tive. 

He  had  other  habits  trying  to  the  nerves  of  beginners  in 
the  newspaper  way.  One  night  he  was  standing  in  the 
rotunda  of  the  hotel  when  a  young  reporter  that  had  been 
sent  to  interview  him  approached  at  one  side  and  began 
timidly  to  recite  his  errand.  Without  bestowing  upon  him 
so  much  as  a  glance  the  general  squarely  turned  his  back. 
The  reporter  sidled  around  until  he  was  again  upon  the 
warrior's  flank  and  started  anew  upon  his  story.  Again 
Sherman  turned  his  back  upon  him,  and  again  the  reporter 
edged  around  until  he  was  abreast  of  an  ear. 

Then  of  a  sudden  and  with  a  terrifying  snort  the  warrior 

26S 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

bent  himself  upon  the  pale-faced  youth  and  yelled  in  his 
ear: 

"Oh,  go  to  hell!" 

The  reporter  waited  not  but  fled  to  his  office,  which,  I 
suppose,  meant  in  his  mind  the  same  thing;  particularly  as 
he  was  about  to  appear  without  the  story  he  had  been  sent 
to  get. 

Even  the  most  experienced  man  in  the  service  hated  an 
assignment  to  see  Sherman,  for  there  was  no  known  way 
of  placating  the  old  fire-brand,  and  Start  groaned  aloud 
one  day  when  he  found  that  the  Fates  had  mixed  this  potion 
in  his  cup.  It  was  a  Washington  despatch  that  did  his 
business;  something  about  army  affairs  on  which  the  tough 
old  gentleman  that  had  led  the  troops  through  Georgia 
must  be  urged  to  talk.  The  tough  old  gentleman  was  as 
usual  at  the  Fifth  Avenue,  in  his  accustomed  room,  and 
Start,  on  some  vague  impulse,  thought  he  would  take  a 
chance  on  going  up  unannounced.  For  one  thing,  he  ex- 
pected to  be  thrown  out  and  judged  he  might  as  well  get 
through  the  operation  quickly  and  go  about  an  errand  that 
might  have  profit  in  it. 

When  he  arrived  at  the  door  he  noticed  that  the  transom 
was  open  and  device  came  to  assist  him.  He  took  out  the 
paper  that  contained  the  Washington  despatch,  heavily 
marked  the  matter  he  was  to  ask  about,  and  wrote  on  the 
margin  in  great  letters: 

"  What  have  you  to  say  about  this  ?  " 

Then  he  tiptoed  to  the  door,  heaved  the  paper  through 
the  transom,  and  fled  down  the  hall. 

A  tremendous  explosion  followed  and  then  a  hoarse 
laugh,  and  the  door  flew  open.  Start  had  stopped  at 
the  first  turning  with  his  head  thrust  out  around  the 
corner. 

264 


Tales  of  a  City  Room  Caliph 

"  Did  you  throw  this  into  my  room?  "  roared  the  general, 
holding  up  the  paper. 

*'  Yep/'  said  Start,  getting  what  the  children  call  "  a 
good  ready  "  to  continue  his  flight  if  need  should  arise. 

"  Well,  come  here,  then,**  said  Sherman,  beckoning.  "  I 
want  to  see  you.** 

So  Start  advanced,  and  the  warrior  said,  with  twinkling 
eyes  : 

"  What  did  you  do  it  for?  ** 

"  Why,**  said  Start,  **  because  the  office  sent  me  to  ask 
you  that  question  and  I  had  to  do  it,  and  I  didn*t  know  any 
other  way  to  ask  it  without  having  my  head  taken  off.** 

Sherman  fell  into  a  chair,  stretched  out  his  legs  before 
him,  and  roared  with  laughter. 

**  Well,'*  he  said,  **  I  suppose  I  am  a  Tartar  to  you  fel- 
lows, but  hang  it,  what  on  earth  do  you  keep  on  pestering 
me  for?** 

"  Not  because  we  like  it,  you  bet,**  said  Start.  "  But 
what  are  we  going  to  do  ?  We  are  ordered  to  ask  you  about 
these  things  and  we*ve  got  to  do  it,  and  there  isn*t  a  man 
in  the  business  that  wouldn't  rather  charge  guns  like  those 
at  Atlanta." 

Sherman  rubbed  his  nose  thoughtfully  for  a  moment  and 
then  said: 

'*  By  George !  I  guess  that*s  right.  Sit  down  here  now 
and  tell  me  what  it  is  you  want  to  know.*' 

So  Start  sat  down  and  Sherman  gave  him  a  column  and 
a  half  of  a  rattling  interview,  and  Start  got  double  rates 
and  a  hatful  of  compliments. 

In  his  next  conspicuous  adventure  his  triumph  was  wholly 
fortuitous.     Like  this: 

One  of  the  leaders  of  the  New  York  bar  at  that  time 
was  Colonel  Richard  Newcombe.     He  had  a  very  hand- 

9.Q5 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

some  and  clever  daughter^  who  favored  us  one  day  by  elop- 
ing with  a  man  that  her  father  had  forbidden  her  to  see — 
for  no  reason^  apparently,  but  the  lover's  poverty.  Here 
was  a  story  that  lacked  nothing  of  the  melodramatic 
flavor;  for  the  father  attempted  to  regain  his  daughter  and 
to  punish  the  bold  lover  and  the  bold  lover  proved  to  be  as 
able  and  resourceful  as  he  was  bold.  The  successive  in- 
stallments of  the  narrative,  therefore,  were  like  the  chap- 
ters of  a  serial  novel. 

Start  covered  this  story  for  the  Herald  and  contributed 
his  share  to  the  rich  pabulum  of  romance  on  which  our 
young  lady  readers  were  ecstatically  feeding.  After  a 
time  the  story  began  to  flag  in  interest  and  for  a  few  days 
the  developments  were  trivial.  Start  was  working  with 
the  reporters  for  the  old  Morning  Journal  and  the  Sun. 
One  night  the  case  was  so  dull  that  he  took  a  perilous 
chance  and  went  to  the  theater  with  his  wife,  arranging  to 
meet  his  co-laborers  of  the  Morning  Journal  and  the  Sun 
at  the  celebrated  drug  store  of  Dr.  Perry  and  obtain  from 
them  whatever  their  investigations  might  have  yielded. 
After  which  he  would  burst  into  the  Herald  office  as  if  fresh 
from  the  assignment  and  write  the  story,  whatever  it 
might  be. 

Well,  of  course,  this  was  the  night  on  which  the  big  news 
broke,  and  only  the  Sun  and  the  Morning  Journal  men  had 
it.  So  when  Start  came  from  the  theater  he  was  surprised 
to  get  from  them  the  best  story  of  the  series.  He  took  down 
their  notes,  left  his  wife  at  the  drug  store  to  wait  for  him, 
bustled  into  the  Herald  office  and  was  told  to  write  a 
column.     Which  he  did  and  went  home. 

The  Sun  man  went  to  his  office  and  the  Sun's  night  city 
editor  deemed  the  story  too  libelous  to  be  safe.  So  the  Sun 
man  wrote  nothing.    The  Morning  Journal  man  went  to  his 

266 


Tales  of  a  City  Boom  Caliph 

office  and  reported  and  his  night  city  editor,  after  being  of 
two  minds,  ordered  two  sticks  of  a  guarded  statement,  which 
the  make-up  man  subsequently  left  out. 

The  Herald  printed  Start's  story  and  when  he  came  to 
the  office  the  next  day  he  was  astounded  to  receive  con- 
gratulations on  all  sides.  He  had  beaten  the  town;  he  had 
scored  the  greatest  "  scoop  "  of  the  year ;  nobody  else  had  a 
line  of  the  story. 

His  name  was  immediately  posted  on  the  bulletin  board, 
he  received  double  rates  for  his  exclusive,  and  when  Mr. 
Bennett  heard  of  the  achievement  he  cabled  over  an  addi- 
tional prize. 

Start  bore  his  honors  with  becoming  modesty,  but  there 
was  one  thing  about  his  bearing  that  struck  us  as  strange. 
In  the  city  room  clinic  that  we  held  daily  while  waiting  for 
assignments  he  could  never  be  induced  to  tell  what  maneu- 
vers he  used  to  land  that  great  and  famous  beat. 

Here  are  two  illuminating  phases  of  one  reporter's 
career.    I  now  offer  a  third. 

Mr.  Bennett  had  a  rule  that  no  man  once  a  member  of 
the  staff  could  be  discharged.  In  case  of  misconduct  he 
could  be  suspended,  but  he  could  not  be  discharged.  For 
some  time  the  crop  of  libel  suits  that  under  our  present 
libel  laws  no  newspaper,  however  carefully  conducted,  can 
hope  to  avoid,  had  been  unusually  large.  At  least  nine- 
tenths  of  these  actions  are  without  merit  and  ought  never 
to  be  brought;  but  even  the  least  of  them  is  a  sore  annoy- 
ance to  a  publisher.  Mr.  Bennett  was  irritated  by  the 
apparent  increase  in  these  things,  which  to  his  mind  indi- 
cated a  growing  carelessness  on  the  part  of  the  reporters. 
He  therefore  made  another  rule  that  when  a  libel  judg- 
ment wa§  rendered  against  the  Herald  the  reporter  that 
wrote  the  offending  story  should  be  suspended  until  his 

267 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

salary  or  average  space  earnings  should  equal  the  amount 
of  the  judgment. 

Start  was  then  doing  Wall  Street.  An  extraordinary- 
number  of  get-rich-quick  schemers  and  swindlers  were 
camped  about  the  edges  of  the  Street  and  Start  went  after 
them  to  dislodge  them.  In  the  course  of  this  campaign 
he  made  an  unfortunate  slip  and  brought  in  an  innocent 
firm. 

The  case  was  pretty  flagrant  and  the  firm  obtained  one 
of  the  largest  libel  judgments  ever  recorded  in  New  York. 
Start  had  been  with  the  paper  twenty  years^  but  there  was 
no  way  to  save  him.  He  was  told  that  he  was  under  sus- 
pension until  his  average  weekly  space  should  amount  to  a 
sum  equal  to  the  judgment.  He  figured  on  this  and  found  he 
would  be  suspended  seven  years  and  ^\q  months.  Then 
he  resigned. 

The  Tale  of  a  Pipe  Dream 

The  good  old  times  are  supposed  to  be  the  only  times 
wherein  things  and  people  were  what  they  ought  to  be,  but 
I  am  certain  nevertheless  that  in  these  present  times  the 
public  is  far  wiser,  more  perceptive,  and  more  discerning 
than  it  was  twenty-five  years  ago;  more  sophisticated,  toOj 
if  you  like,  but  certainly  of  a  readier  and  less  naive  intelli- 
gence. To-day  if  anything  can  be  gathered  of  the  general 
attitude  toward  the  press  it  is  assuredly  one  of  suspicion, 
but  in  my  salad  days  the  case  was  otherwise. 

When  the  Scotch  yacht  Thistle  came  over  here  in  1887 
to  race  for  the  America's  cup  a  great  and  very  foolish  mys- 
tery was  made  about  her.  For  some  reason  or  other  a  cer- 
tain part  of  the  British  public  seems  possessed  of  the 
belief  that  "  American  smartness  "  consists  of  fooling  some- 
body and  the  only  defense  of  the  unfortunate  alien  is  to  fool 

268 


Tales  of  a  City  Room  Caliph 

back.  In  no  other  way  can  one  explain  the  remarkable 
performances  with  the  Thistle,  for  no  amount  of  mystery  or 
concealment  could  add  anything  to  the  vessel's  speed  or 
affect  a  contest  based  so  squarely  on  merit  and  physical 
fact. 

But  anyway,  long  before  she  left  the  other  side  the 
Thistle  was  heralded  to  us  as  a  craft  of  a  construction  so 
strange,  novel,  and  superior  to  anything  previously  known 
in  designing  that  the  cup  was  as  good  as  won  before  the 
race  started.  The  Glasgow  newspapers  and  correspond- 
ents favored  us  with  many  alarming  hints  of  the  beating 
in  store  for  us  and  of  the  truly  marvelous  device  that  had 
been  added  to  the  Thistle  to  complete  our  ruin.  When  the 
boat  arrived  at  New  York  these  notions  were  augmented 
because  no  one  was  allowed  to  go  aboard  of  her,  artists  and 
reporters  were  driven  with  scant  civility  (or  none)  from  her 
neighborhood,  and  all  connected  with  her  curtly  refused  to 
answer  any  questions  or  to  indulge  in  the  amenities  common 
to  civilized  life.  One  result  of  which  being  the  develop- 
ment of  more  bitter  feeling  than  has  ever  attended  any 
other  contest  for  the  cup. 

When  the  Thistle  was  taken  out  of  the  water  in  the  old 
East  River  dry  dock  great  sheets  of  canvas  and  tarpaulins 
were  hung  all  about  the  dock  so  as  to  conceal  her  hull  from 
every  point  of  view,  and  all  the  work  on  her  was  done  by 
her  own  sailors. 

This  set  the  general  curiosity  on  edge.  In  the  midst  of 
the  buzzing  comments  a  story  was  cabled  from  Glasgow 
that  the  real  secret  of  the  Thistle's  construction  about  which 
we  had  heard  so  much  was  a  mystic  device  called  an  air 
cushion  placed  under  her  hull  to  make  it  extremely  light. 
To  retain  the  air  in  a  position  to  support  the  hull  a  peculiar 
shaping  of  the  underbody  was  said  to  have  been  invented 

269 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

that  did  not  interfere  with  speed  but  kept  the  air  from 
escaping. 

This  narrative  being  widely  reprinted  here  was  accepted 
at  its  face  value  with  the  result  that  the  imagination  of 
the  average  man  was  sadly  strained  to  think  how  air  could 
be  confined  on  a  ship's  bottom  and  still  allow  the  ship  no- 
ticeably to  travel.  Yet  we  were  assured  that  the  ingenious 
Scotch  builder  had  settled  this  difficulty  and  when  the  con- 
tending boats  should  come  up  to  the  line  we  should  be  pre- 
pared to  see  the  Thistle  sail  off  on  her  air  cushions  as  upon 
the  wings  of  a  bird,  while  the  poor  old  Volunteer  should 
be  left  wallowing. 

The  Thistle  was  now  anchored  off  Tompkinsville  and  so 
carefully  guarded  night  and  day  that  not  an  alien  soul 
could  get  near  to  her.  At  this  point  one  of  the  World's 
bright  young  men  thought  of  a  scheme.  He  hired  a  barge 
and  anchored  it  in  the  Thistle's  vicinity,  apparently  for 
dredging  purposes.  Then  one  night  he  went  down  with  a 
diver  in  a  diver's  suit.  And  he  got  under  the  Thistle's  bot- 
tom and  spent  hours  in  examining  every  streak  of  it  with  his 
hands.  And  soon  after  the  World  was  able  to  announce  to 
its  readers  that  the  wonderful  hull  of  the  Thistle  was  ex- 
actly like  the  hull  of  any  other  vessels  and  the  only  "  air 
cushions  "  were  hot  and  existed  in  the  brains  of  the  Glas- 
gow correspondents. 

And  on  the  day  of  the  first  race,  behold,  old  Hank  Haff 
steered  the  Volunteer  up  to  the  starting  line.  And  as  she 
went  over  he  shook  out  her  forestaysail  and  slung  a  sign 
over  the  rudder  that  read,  *'  Keep  Astern."  And  that  was 
where  the  Thistle  kept  all  through  the  race.  And  when 
Haff  went  over  the  finish  line  and  instantly  took  in  all  his 
kites  the  Thistle  had  kept  so  far  astern  that  she  was  not 
anywhere  in  sight. 

270 


Tales  of  a  City  Room  Caliph 

Perhaps  an  ingenious  correspondent  could  work  off  now 
some  such  dream  as  the  Thistle's  air  cushions  and  make 
people  believe  it,  but  I  have  my  doubts. 

The  Tale  op  a  Quart  of  Pi 

The  ablest  newspaper  commander  I  knew  in  a  long  serv- 
ice in  many  offices,  the  most  resourceful  strategist  and  the 
most  courageous  captain  on  a  hard-fought  field  was  Wil- 
liam C.  Reick,  now  president  of  the  New  York  Sun  Company 
and  for  many  years  the  city  editor  of  the  New  York  Herald, 
I  served  for  a  long  time  as  his  first  assistant.  There  are 
mighty  few  generals  that  can  continue  to  look  big  to  the 
second  in  command,  but  the  more  I  saw  of  Reick  at  close 
range  the  more  I  was  obliged  to  acknowledge  his  strong 
traits.  It  was  not  alone  that  he  always  had  himself  in 
hand;  a  merely  imperturbable  man  is  of  no  use  to  lead  a 
newspaper  battle.  In  that  contest  the  general  must  have 
not  only  the  cool  and  steady  head  but  enough  feeling,  en- 
thusiasm, and  sympathy  to  inspire  the  corps.  Otherwise 
he  will  not  lead  them  to  anything.  No  one  ever  saw  Mr. 
Reick  swept  off  his  feet,  but  he  had  also  the  magnetism  and 
the  verve  that  produce  results  from  a  newspaper  staff. 

The  Herald  used  to  make  a  great  stunt  of  the  gathering 
of  election  returns,  which  it  did  on  a  system  of  peculiar 
efficiency  devised  by  Thomas  G.  Alvord,  afterward  Assist- 
ant Librarian  of  Congress.  In  1894  we  had  in  both  state 
and  city  extremely  close  and  exciting  contests.  In  the  city 
was  revolt  against  Tammany  and  in  the  state  against  the 
old  Hill  machine.  I  had  charge  of  the  returns  from  the 
city;  another  executive  managed  the  returns  from  the 
state.  On  election  night,  we  were  a  little  slow  about  getting 
to  press,  which  was  bad,  for  the  orders  for  extra  papers 
were  enormous ;  but  at  last  everything  was  away  except  one 

271 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

page,  which  was  waiting  for  the  great  state  table,  the  device 
that  showed  the  returns  from  each  county. 

Mr.  Reick  was  in  general  charge.  We  were  all  in  the  com- 
posing room  waiting  (in  agony  of  spirit)  for  that  one  table. 
Space  had  been  accurately  measured  for  it;  every  other 
line  of  type  was  in  position,  every  column  had  been  justi- 
fied; the  foreman,  the  make-ups,  and  the  rest  of  us  went 
boiling  up  and  down  with  impatience,  waiting  for  that  table. 
At  last  it  came;  two  men  seized  it  to  lift  it  into  position 
at  the  head  of  the  waiting  page ;  every  eye  was  intent  upon 
them  as  they  slowly  raised  the  type  from  the  galley  and 
brought  it  gingerly  upright  into  position  above  the  form. 

And  then  the  center  dropped  out  of  it  and  the  whole  thing 
fell  clattering  upon  the  form,  that  much  miserable  pi. 

I  seemed  to  swoon,  while  the  room  went  around  me  like  a 
balloon.  A  make-up  man  shrieked  aloud ;  Manny  Geary,  the 
famous  Herald  foreman,  turned  as  white  as  his  shirt  and 
fell  against  the  imposing  stone.  A  great  gasp  went  up  from 
every  man  there  except  one;  a  kind  of  a  long-drawn  cuss- 
word  wrung  from  overwrought  souls — from  all  except  Mr. 
Reick.  Without  an  exclamation,  a  quaver  of  excitement  in 
his  voice,  or  a  sign  of  dismay  in  his  face  he  said  instantly: 

*'  Clear  it  away !  Now  put  in  this  and  this,"  (swiftly  in- 
dicating items  on  the  galleys).  "  Close  it  up.  Send  it 
away."  In  another  moment  the  form  was  on  the  stereo- 
typer's  table.  A  man  whose  nerves  were  perfectly  steady 
at  such  a  moment  was  born  with  the  gift  of  command, 
which  amounts  to  a  sixth  sense  and  is  rarer  than  the  okapi. 

The  Tale  of  the  Extra  Compositors 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  newspaper  proprietor 
Joseph   Pulitzer   was   the   unequaled   wizard   and   wonder 

272 


Tales  of  a  City  Room  Caliph 

worker,  but  even  he  like  other  men  was  a  compound  of 
strength  and  weakness.  One  of  his  weak  points  was  the 
belief,  besetting  him  after  his  eyes  failed  him,  that  he 
could  find  another  newspaper  maker  like  himself.  In  the 
pursuit  of  this  phantom,  he  was  much  engaged  in  drawing 
what  is  called  talent  from  other  offices  instead  of  trying  to 
develop  it  in  his  own.  The  result  was  that  the  World  was 
conducted  for  a  time  by  a  procession  of  managing  editors 
that  walked  in  at  the  front  door,  got  out  an  issue  or  two, 
disappeared  in  the  rear,  and  were  seen  no  more. 

In  this  line  came  one  that  had  been  managing  editor  of 
the  Herald  and  was  really  of  fine  mind,  and  when  he  had 
a  chance  to  operate  according  to  the  bent  of  his  own  humor, 
of  good  ability.  He  had  been  a  great  reporter,  had  written 
some  of  the  most  famous  stories  in  newspaper  annals,  and 
was  exactly  suited  to  the  Herald  but  not  at  all  to  the  World, 
Let  us  call  him  Mr.  Goodman. 

Mr,  Bennett,  the  proprietor  of  the  Herald,  lived  in  Eu- 
rope and  while  he  kept  in  close  touch  with  his  journal  he 
was  not  well  informed  about  changing  conditions  in  the 
newspaper  world.  In  his  search  for  talent  Mr.  Pulitzer 
was  steadily  driving  up  salaries  and  Mr.  Bennett  did  not 
know  that  fact.  Among  the  men  to  whom  Mr.  Pulitzer 
made  overtures  was  Mr.  Goodman  of  the  Herald,  Mr. 
Goodman  was  not  eager  to  change  his  base  to  the  World 
office,  but  he  naturally  thought  the  occasion  propitious  for 
an  adjustment  of  his  salary  relations  to  his  job.  When 
he  mentioned  this  view  to  Mr.  Bennett  he  was  grieved  and 
astonished  to  find  that  it  touched  no  sympathetic  chord 
in  his  employer's  bosom.  Whereupon  Mr.  Goodman  ac- 
cepted Mr.  Pulitzer's  ojffer  and  went  over  to  steer  the 
World  ship. 

A  few  days  later  some  of  Mr.  Bennett's  friends  were 

273 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

condoling  with  him  on  losing  a  managing  editor  so  able  and 
famous.  "  Too  bad,  Mr.  Bennett/'  said  they.  "  How  can 
you  ever  replace  him  ?  " 

This  annoyed  Mr.  Bennett,  who  had  his  own  views  about 
the  existence  of  the  indispensable  man. 

"  Nonsense !  "  said  he.  "  Any  man  can  fill  that  position. 
I'll  make  my  stenographer  managing  editor.  I'll  make 
the  baseball  reporter  managing  editor.  It  is  no  trick  to 
get  a  managing  editor." 

He  came  near  to  fulfilling  his  threat,  too.  He  abol- 
ished the  post  of  managing  editor  and  created  a  new  posi- 
tion, that  of  news  editor  to  have  charge  of  cable  and  tele- 
graph news  and  nothing  else,  and  into  this  place  he  put  first 
the  office  stenographer,  and  then  the  baseball  reporter,  both 
of  whom  justified  the  soundness  of  his  judgment  by  dis- 
charging with  ability  the  duties  of  their  new  office.  It  is 
to  be  remarked  in  passing  that  the  Herald  has  never  had 
a  managing  editor  from  that  day  to  this,  and  so  far  as  I 
could  discover  never  needed  one. 

In  the  World  office  Mr.  Goodman  came  upon  uncomfort- 
able quarters.  Every  commander  stepping  in  this  way  from 
one  deck  to  another  finds  his  new  position  bristling  with 
difficulties.  Some  arise  from  personal  jealousies,  some  from 
the  hostility  of  the  crew,  and  some  from  the  critical  attitude 
of  the  ownership,  always  looking  for  miracles.  Mr.  Good- 
man had  his  fill  of  all  of  these. 

We  were  then  passing  through  what  may  be  termed  the 
Bedlam  period  of  New  York  journalism.  Human  ingenu- 
ity had  been  all  but  exhausted  in  devising  typographical  and 
other  eccentricities  with  which  to  diversify  the  pages  and 
torment  the  readers.  Thus,  for  a  time,  the  rule  was  that 
every  story  must  begin  with  an  exclamation  in  a  single  word 
or  a  single  line.     If  of  a  murder,  for  instance,  it  usually 

274 


Tales  of  a  City  Room  Caliph 

began  with  the  single  word,  "  Blood ! "  set  in  a  lonely 
shriek  at  the  head  of  the  column.  If  of  a  fire  it  began 
similarly  with  "  Flames !  "  If  of  a  railroad  collision  it  be- 
gan with  "  Smash !  "  or  "  Crash !  "  And  so  on.  I  grieve 
to  state  that  so  far  as  the  records  show  the  lunatic  that 
devised  this  scheme  seems  to  have  escaped  his  deserts  here 
in  this  life,  but  I  doubt  not  the  bitter  recompense  that 
awaited  him  upon  another  shore. 

When  this  species  of  madness  had  been  carried  to  a 
point  where  indignant  readers  seemed  likely  to  raid  the 
offices,  it  was  followed  with  a  rule  that  every  story  should 
begin  with  a  famous  literary  quotation.  While  this  lasted 
we  wore  out  in  our  office  seven  copies  of  Bartlett  and  the 
hair  of  the  night  city  editor  turned  gray.  Next  we  wrote 
all  the  heads  in  rhyme.  Then  we  experimented  with  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  typographical  jim-jams  until  nothing  seemed 
to  be  left  except  that  we  should  set  the  paper  upside  down 
while  the  members  of  the  staff  should  stand  in  Broadway 
on  their  heads  and  wriggling  their  toes.  I  was  going  to 
suggest  this  to  my  managing  editor  once,  only  I  restrained 
myself. 

While  the  delirium  was  at  its  height  a  famous  executive 
on  one  of  the  papers,  starting  upstairs  from  the  street  to 
his  office,  heard  one  urchin  newsboy  yell  to  another: 

"  You  bet  your  life  we  are  the  stuff !  " 

The  phrase,  one  of  the  commonest  and  stupidest  in  street 
slang,  echoed  in  his  mind  as  he  went  up  the  stairs,  keeping 
pace  with  his  footsteps  in  a  kind  of  devilish  rhythm,  and  the 
next  morning  that  journal  bested  all  its  competitors  in  the 
lunacy  race  by  bristling  over  with  this  line  set  in  full  face 
and  inserted  between  every  two  items : 

"  You  bet  your  life  we  are  the  stuff !  " 

This  lasted  two  or  three  days.     Then  the  line  appeared 

275 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

in  the  same  way  but  translated  into  German^  tlien  into 
French,  then  into  Italian,  and  so  on  until  every  language 
in  Europe  had  been  ransacked  and  the  genius  in  charge 
had  begun  on  the  tongues  of  Asia. 

In  newspaper  circles  at  the  time  this  was  regarded  as 
a  great  hit.  I  do  not  know  how  I  can  better  indicate  the 
depths  to  which  we  had  fallen. 

Over  in  the  World  office,  Mr.  Pulitzer  insisted  on  ideas, 
novelties,  and  suggestions  from  his  executives,  so  that  a 
great  rivalry  to  shine  thus  in  his  sight  grew  up  among  some 
of  them,  and  one  at  least  adopted  the  custom  of  keeping 
a  book  in  which  he  recorded  every  suggestion  he  made  that 
none  might  steal  his  credit.  The  pressure  for  suggestions 
and  novelties  was  now  applied  to  Mr.  Goodman,  and  in 
one  case,  certainly,  with  somewhat  peculiar  results. 

It  was  just  at  the  time  of  the  historic  Pigott  disclosures 
in  London,  when  the  case  that  the  London  Times  and  the 
English  Tories  had  worked  up  against  Parnell  and  the 
Irish  Nationalists  came  to  the  ground  with  such  a  memo- 
rable crash.  On  the  night  when  Parnell's  vindication  be- 
came overwhelming  and  complete,  Mr.  Goodman  recalled 
to  mind  the  famous  achievement  of  the  managing  editor  that 
listened  to  the  inspired  words  of  the  street  urchin,  and  he 
issued  an  order  that  every  article  and  every  item  in  the 
whole  paper,  big  or  little,  and  no  matter  what  the  nature 
thereof,  should  end  with  the  exclamation, 

"  A  Great  Day  for  Ireland!  " 

It  was  tempting  Fate  itself  to  do  such  a  thing  and  of 
course  the  inevitable  happened.  One  Hennessey,  the  janitor 
of  a  public  building  in  Brooklyn,  playing  on  the  top  floor 
with  his  children,  fell  over  the  railing  of  the  air  well  and 
was  killed.  "  A  Great  Day  for  Ireland !  "  Grim  old 
Recorder    Smythe    had    before    him    a    notorious    burglar 

276 


Tales  of  a  City  Room  Caliph 

called  0*Shaughnessy  and  sentenced  him  to  sixty-five  years 
in  Sing  Sing.  "  A  Great  Day  for  Ireland !  **  The  body  of 
a  floater  in  the  East  River  was  identified  as  that  of  a 
worthy  citizen  named  Patrick  Doolan.  "  A  Great  Day  for 
Ireland !  '*  James  Kelley  and  Michael  O'Brien  were  ar- 
rested for  fighting  on  a  coal  barge,  and  O'Brien  was  found 
to  be  so  battered  they  had  to  take  him  to  Bellevue  to  get 
him  sewed  together  in  one  piece.  "  A  Great  Day  for  Ire- 
land !  "  William  Mulrooney,  a  well-known  philanthropist 
of  the  east  side,  choked  to  death  on  a  chicken-bone.  **  A 
Great  Day  for  Ireland !  " 

So  we  plugged  along  at  the  desk,  obeying  orders,  adding 
to  every  item  the  required  line,  and  waiting  for  the  storm, 
for  the  poorest  prognosticator  in  the  office  could  detect  an 
area  of  low  pressure  at  hand.  Colonel  John  A.  Cockerill, 
usually  an  amiable  gentleman  but  having  withal  a  short  tem- 
per, was  the  editor-in-chief  of  the  paper.  He  usually  came 
in  about  ten  o'clock  at  night,  called  for  his  proofs,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  write  whatever  editorial  comment  was  indicated 
by  the  night's  news. 

About  ten  o'clock  we  heard  him  throw  open  the  office 
doors  and  swing  along  to  his  room,  calling  out  as  he  went: 

"  Boy !     Bring  my  proofs !  " 

The  boy  brought  them  and  the  rest  of  us  clung  to  our 
desks  while  we  listened  for  what  should  come  next.  In  a 
few  minutes  we  heard  a  low  rumble  like  the  sound  of 
distant  thunder,  then  a  rapid  fire  discharge  of  expletives, 
then  a  reverberating  roar,  and  Colonel  Cockerill  burst  out 
of  his  room  with  a  handful  of  proofs  and  shouting  at  the 
top  of  his  voice: 

**  What  in  perdition !    What  in  the  blue !    Who 

has  done  this?  Show  me  the  man!  Let  me  get  my  hands 
on  him !    Where  is  the  maniac !    Show  him  to  me !  " 

277 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

The  night  city  editor  ran  up  and  apologetically  explained 
the  orders  that  had  been  given.  Colonel  Cockerill 
scarcely  listened. 

"  I  don't  care  who  said  so !  Take  them  all  out !  I  won't 
have  one  of  them  in  the  paper.  Take  them  all  out^  I  say !  ** 
And  he  stamped  out  to  the  composing  room,  where  we 
could  hear  his  powerful  voice  roaring  imprecations  and 
orders. 

Those  were  the  days  of  hand-set  type.  The  offending 
lines  were,  in  many  instances,  run  into  the  articles  and 
items.  Probably  a  hundred  of  them  had  been  set  up  when 
Colonel  Cockerill  arrived.  To  take  them  out  was  a 
colossal  task.  An  urgency  call  was  sent  out  and  extra 
compositors  secured.  But  for  all  their  labors  six  of  the 
lines  appeared  in  the  first  edition  and  informed  its  readers 
that  it  was  **  A  Great  Day  for  Ireland."  I  can  assure  you 
some  anxious  and  painful  searchings  were  required  to  get 
these  out  before  the  second  edition  went  to  press. 

It  was  the  anticlimax  of  freaking  and  laid  freaking  low 
for  seven  years. 

The  Tale  of  Eugene  Field  and  the  Chicago 
"  Tribune  " 

The  Spanish-American  war  made  a  memorable  chapter  in 
newspaper  history,  chiefly  because  of  the  enormous  expendi- 
tures it  caused.  Nothing  that  ever  had  been  reported  any- 
where on  earth  cost  so  much  money  to  cover.  I  was  an 
executive  in  the  Hearst  service  and  we  had  at  one  time 
under  charter  for  the  purpose  of  getting  the  news  of  that 
war,  five  tugs  and  steamers,  besides  Mr.  Hearst's  own  yacht 
and  another  he  had  hired.  One  of  the  steamers  was  a 
Red  Cross  liner  and  another  was  a  Brazilian  freighter.      The 

278 


Tales  of  a  City  Room  Ccdiph 

Caribbean  is  a  rough  place  to  be  knocking  around  in  any 
small  vessel^  and  the  difficulties  of  news  gathering  were  in 
other  ways  very  great.  For  one  thing  the  field  of  opera- 
tions extended  over  the  entire  West  Indies_,  and  at  almost 
any  of  the  islands  in  the  archipelago  a  story  might  come 
to  port. 

In  these  conditions,,  as  will  be  readily  understood^  when 
a  newspaper  succeeded  in  getting  a  despatch  of  any  im- 
portance, to  have  it  lifted  by  a  rival  and  calmly  reproduced 
as  original  caused  some  bitterness  of  spirit.  Yet  this  is 
a  practice  most  of  the  newspapers  were  engaged  in  then  and 
are  now.  In  plain  terms,  they  helped  themselves  to  any- 
thing they  fancied  in  their  neighbors'  chicken  coops,  and 
still  do  so.  Indeed,  to  the  philosopher  it  must  be  ever  a 
matter  for  curious  speculation  that  we  in  our  editorial 
columns  daily  thunder  for  the  strictest  honesty  and  with 
brow  severe  condemn  the  wrong-doer,  and  then  employ  ex- 
perts to  filch  news  out  of  one  another's  first  editions. 

On  ordinary  occasions  this  species  of  rapine,  being  more 
or  less  reciprocal,  passes  without  much  comment;  but  the 
case  of  war  news  obtained  at  so  heavy  a  cost  was  different. 
Newspapers  or  news  agencies  that  were  spending  little  or 
perhaps  nothing  to  cover  the  events  were  cheaply  providing 
themselves  with  the  fruits  of  enterprise  and  liberality. 

One  day  a  little  group  of  us  was  talking  with  Mr. 
Hearst  about  these  things,  and  clever  Arthur  McEwen  (he's 
dead  now,  rest  his  soul;  was  never  a  better  man  in  jour- 
nalism) suggested  that  a  plot  should  be  laid  to  catch  some 
poacher  on  the  news  preserves.  Doubt  was  expressed  as 
to  whether  this  could  be  successfully  done,  whereupon  I 
was  reminded  of  a  long-forgotten  story. 

About  1885,  when  Field  was  conducting  his  famous 
"  Sharps  and  Flats  "  column  in  the  Chicago  Daily  News, 

279 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

that  paper  was  much  annoyed  by  this  same  practice  of  pil- 
fering^ sometimes  from  its  first  editions,  and  sometimes, 
in  a  mysterious  way,  from  its  proofs.  Every  beat  being 
thus  burglarized  before  it  appeared,  enterprise  was  use- 
less and  prescience  a  farce. 

"  Leave  it  to  me,'*  said  Field  when  this  situation  was 
explained  to  him.  Matthew  Arnold  had  been  recently  on  a 
tour  through  America  and  had  returned  to  England.  Field 
faked  an  exceedingly  clever  interview  with  Arnold  in 
which  the  author  told  in  his  peculiar  style  of  his  experi- 
ences in  this  country  and  gave  out  some  recondite  and  not 
complimentary  views  about  Chicago  and  other  cities.  This 
stuff  Field  pretended  had  just  appeared  in  the  Pall  Mall 
Journal  and  now  purported  to  be  cabled  to  the  News  by  its 
London  correspondent.  It  was  done  so  perfectly  that  al- 
most any  editor  might  fall  for  it;  only  there  was  no  such 
paper  as  the  Pall  Mall  Journal,  This  was  put  into  type 
and  a  proof  of  it  hung  up  with  the  other  office  proofs ;  but 
the  night  editor  was  warned  and  the  matter  omitted  in  the 
make-up. 

That  same  morning  the  Chicago  Tribune  bloomed  on  its 
first  page  with  Field's  concoction  published  as  genuine,  and 
adorned  with  a  large  head.    It  began  thus : 

(Special  Cable  Despatch  to  the  Chicago  Tribune.) 
London,  Nov.  18. — The  Pall  Mall  Journal  prints  to- 
day a  remarkable  interview  with  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold 
on  his  recent  visit  to  America.    Mr.  Arnold  being  asked 
what  he  thought  of  Chicago,  said: 

And  then  followed  the  rest  of  the  Field  fake. 

In  other  words,  the  constable  had  descended  upon  the 
chicken  coop  and  nailed  the  pilferer  with  a  fat  pullet  in 

280 


Tales  of  a  City  Room  Caliph 

his  hand.  The  next  morning  the  News  and  Fields  (with 
his  biting  sarcasm,)  made  the  Tribune  the  laughing-stock 
of  the  country. 


The  Tale  op  a  Renowned  Hero 

McEwen  was  much  taken  with  this  story.  He  retired  to 
his  room  for  a  time  and  returned  with  a  beautiful  little 
despatch  from  Cardenas,  **  Special  to  the  Morning  Journal 
— from  a  staff  correspondent/'  telling  of  a  sharp  bombard- 
ment of  the  Spanish  batteries  there.  He  had  been  careful 
to  look  up  the  American  warships  that  were  in  that  vicinity, 
and  as  such  actions  were  of  frequent  occurrence  and  as  he 
managed  the  details  with  consummate  skill  the  thing  was 
extremely  plausible.  Repeatedly  in  despatches  from  the 
seat  of  war  the  charge  had  been  made  that  German  and 
Austrian  artillery  officers  were  assisting  the  Spaniards. 
Down  in  the  middle  of  his  story  McEwen  worked  in  the 
announcement  that  among  the  dead  on  the  Spanish  side  was 
"  Colonel  Reflipe  W.  Thenuz,  a  gallant  and  distinguished 
Austrian  officer  of  artillery/'  who  was  fatally  wounded  by 
a  shell  while  directing  the  Spanish  guns. 

We  printed  this  the  next  morning.  To  tell  the  truth,  none 
of  us  had  much  hope  that  it  would  land  anything,  but,  be- 
hold, the  Evening  World  promptly  picked  it  up,  made 
it  into  a  "  Special  Despatch  from  our  Staff  Correspondent  '* 
and  added,  to  our  joy,  a  neat  touch  of  perfection  by  dat- 
ing the  thing  **  On  board  the  World's  tug  Dauntless,"  or 
some  such  name.  There  it  was,  McEwen's  fake  as  he  had 
written  it,  conveying  with  other  intelligence  the  sad  news  of 
the  death  of  *'  Colonel  Reflipe  W.  Thenuz  "  that  "  gallant 
and  distinguished  Austrian  officer  of  artillery.'* 

The  next  day  the  morning  edition  of  the  World  kindly 

281 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

reprinted  the  same  despatch  still  from  its  staff  correspondent 
and  still  dated  **  On  board  the  World*s  tug  Dauntless/'  and 
again  the  melancholy  tidings  about  Colonel  Thenuz^  that 
gallant  and  distinguished  warrior,  was  vouchsafed  to  man- 
kind. 

But  over  in  our  office  there  was  no  melancholy,  but  only 
glad  shouts  of  joy.  McEwen*s  cleverness  had  landed  the 
fish;  not  the  fish  we  had  started  for,  because  the  World 
was  not  our  aim,  but  still  a  fish  and  a  good  one.  *'  Reflipe 
W.  Thenuz  "  was  an  anagram,  which  being  properly  ar- 
ranged read  thus: 

"  We  pilfer  the  news." 

You  may  be  sure  that  succeeding  issues  of  our  paper  did 
not  fail  to  impress  the  facts  upon  the  public. 

Indeed,  we  had  done  far  more  than  we  imagined,  for 
we  had  made  the  "  gallant  and  distinguished  officer  *'  the 
real  hero  of  the  war.  Not  Hobson,  not  Schley,  not  Dewey 
himself  achieved  a  modicum  of  the  renown  that  fell  upon  the 
redoubtable  Colonel  Thenuz.  The  story  of  the  exploit  that 
gave  him  to  fame  was  printed  first  in  almost  every  American 
newspaper.  Then  it  crossed  the  Atlantic  and  the  French 
journals  took  it  up,  finding  in  it  a  flavor  delicate  to  the 
Gallic  taste.  Seeing  that  our  gallant  and  distinguished 
champion  was  likely  to  become  an  international  figure  we 
subscribed  in  his  behalf  to  a  Paris  clipping  bureau  whose 
service  covered  the  world.  I  had  the  clippings  on  their 
arrival  brought  to  my  desk  and  thus  was  able  to  follow 
(with  always  increasing  amazement)  the  far  wanderings  of 
our  hero.  He  went  through  France  amid  applause  and 
laughter.  He  was  translated  into  Italian  and  convulsed 
the  peninsula.  He  was  taken  up  by  the  German  press  and 
enthusiastically  welcomed  in  his  native  Austria.  He  jour- 
neyed to  the  northland  and  appeared  in  Norway,  Sweden, 

282 


Talcs  of  a  City  Room  Caliph 

Denmark,  and  Finland.  In  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow  He 
scored  notably.  He  was  translated  into  Hungarian,  Rou- 
manian, and  Turkish.  He  moved  eastward  along  the 
Trans-Siberian,  and  in  marvelous  garb  appeared  in  that 
newspaper  published  in  the  heart  of  central  Siberia,  the 
Hoboe  Something  or  Other,  I  never  could  get  the  whole 
title  straight.  With  every  foreign  mail  came  fresh  hun- 
dreds of  clippings  showing  his  advance  around  the  world. 
Wonderful  languages  and  dialects  were  strained  to  celebrate 
his  glory.  Lithuanian,  Lettish,  Egyptian — ^journals  from 
the  remote  corners  of  the  earth  related  his  untimely  death. 
In  South  Africa  he  shone  resplendent;  in  Australia  he  was 
deservedly  popular.  But  whether  amid  the  dots  and  dashes 
of  Hindustanee  or  the  quaint  curves  of  Burmese  I  could 
usually  make  out  "  Colonel  Reflipe  W.  Thenuz,  a  gallant 
and  distinguished  officer,"  and  the  explanation  of  the  ana- 
gram. A  year  after  the  treaty  of  peace  had  been  signed 
and  the  war  had  begun  to  be  forgotten,  the  clippings  con- 
tinued to  accumulate  upon  my  desk  and  the  battle-scarred 
Colonel  to  move  through  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth. 
Then  they  stopped  and  I  concluded  that  the  gallant  old 
soldier  had  at  last  been  laid  to  rest.  Another  year  went  by 
and  we  in  the  office  had  clean  forgotten  him  when  there 
came  to  my  desk  a  clipping  from  a  newspaper  at  Geneva, 
Switzerland,  telling  the  whole  story  anew.  By  what  chance 
it  had  thus  been  revived  I  know  not,  but  at  any  rate  off 
dashed  the  gallant  Colonel  upon  a  fresh  round  of  travels. 
Again  he  moved  through  France,  Germany,  Scandinavia, 
Russia,  the  Near  and  the  Far  East;  again  the  Hoboe  Some- 
thing sounded  the  trump  of  his  fame.  A  new  set  of  jour- 
nals that  before  had  missed  the  glory  of  his  great  deed  and 
the  tragedy  of  his  taking  off  now  wreathed  his  name  with 
laurels  ever  fresh.     Again  amid  the  marvels  of  strange 

283 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

speech  I  could  make  out  "  Colonel  Reflipe  W.  Thenuz^  a 
gallant  and  distinguished  officer/*  and  I  knew  that  the 
editor  was  explaining  the  anagram  and  the  joke,  now  by  the 
banks  of  the  Irrawaddy  and  now  "  where  Nile  reflects  the 
endless  length  of  dark  red  colonnades/'  or  words  to  that 
effect. 

In  all  more  than  two  thousand  clippings  on  this  subject 
comprised  my  collection  and  three  years  had  passed  be- 
fore they  ceased  to  accumulate.  Even  now  I  doubt  not  that 
occasionally  in  the  pathless  regions  of  far  Cathay  the  ghost 
of  the  gallant  and  distinguished  officer  stalks  through  the 
columns  of  some  provincial  journal  and  the  readers  thereof 
are  inducted  into  the  mystery  of  his  anagram  and  the 
story  of  his  lamentable  passing.  Few  men  of  this  genera- 
tion have  in  a  lifetime  achieved  the  celebrity  he  won  in  an 
hour;  and  if  to  divert  the  world  with  innocent  amusement 
be  a  service,  his  sponsors,  who  are  also  his  admirers,  may 
look  upon  his  career  with  some  satisfaction,  for  millions 
have  read  of  him  with  laughter. 


S34> 


XVI 


THE    ART    OP   REPORTING 


After  a  newspaper  experience  of  more  than  twenty-five 
years  that  had  at  one  end  the  post  of  deputy  assistant 
mailing  clerk  and  at  the  other  the  post  of  publisher^  I  can, 
in  the  manner  of  the  esteemed  Chevalier  Burke,  place  my 
hand  upon  my  heart  and  declare  that  the  best  job  on  earth 
is  that  of  the  city  editor  of  a  New  York  daily. 

Other  employments  are  but  rubbish  in  comparison.  The 
life  of  an  editor-in-chief  is  as  dun  as  the  plains  in  winter; 
a  publisher  is  no  more  than  a  high-priced  lackey  witH 
two  masters;  the  editorial  writer  emits  great  thoughts  for 
the  exclusive  perusal  of  the  proof  reader,  who  is  paid  for 
the  same;  the  managing  editor  is  largely  a  figure  of  orna- 
ment; the  business  manager  consorts  with  the  powers  of 
evil.  But  the  city  editor,  if  he  knows  his  business  and  has 
the  others  properly  cowed,  is  the  real  captain  of  the  ship, 
the  only  person  in  the  establishment  that  has  any  real 
power,  and  the  only  producer  of  results.  Nothing  is  of 
any  importance  to  his  newspaper  except  that  it  shall  have 
circulation  in  New  York  City,  and  if  such  circulation  is 
attained  the  city  editor  must  furnish  the  greater  part  of 
the  achievement.  On  him  falls  necessarily  the  brunt  of  the 
problem,  for  the  reason  that  a  New  York  constituency  cares 
for  little  except  New  York.  The  typical  New  Yorker  is 
skeptical  about  any  region  west  of  Hoboken  or  east  of  Far 
Rockaway ;  and  even  if  it  exists  he  has  no  interest  in  it.    He 

285 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

is  the  man  that  the  newspaper  must  please^  if  it  is  to  suc- 
ceed, and  the  city  editor  is  hired  to  meet  and  supply  that 
necessity.  It  is  a  task  likely  to  keep  him  from  falling  asleep 
at  his  desk. 

Moreover,  the  city  editor  is  an  artist.  As  a  painter  be- 
fore his  easel  so  sits  every  day  the  city  editor  before  the 
paper  he  is  to  make.  Here  in  his  hand  he  holds  all  the 
colors  of  all  the  news  of  the  day;  upon  his  schedule  as 
upon  canvas  he  lays  them  to  suit  the  taste  before  mentioned. 
He  can  lay  on  the  crimes  and  give  to  his  paper  a  red 
hue;  he  can  develop  the  humorous  side  of  a  day's  life  in 
the  city;  he  can  seize  a  story  in  low  tones  from  the  heart 
of  the  lost  and  found  advertisements;  he  can  work  out 
every  contrast  of  scarlet  and  purple,  for  every  variety  of 
tint  is  supplied  by  the  events  before  him.  He  has  but  to 
choose,  to  combine,  and  to  study  the  results.  And  all  the 
time  he  can  derive  from  his  weavings  the  satisfaction  that 
pertains  only  to  the  exercise  of  art,  which  is  now  and  always 
a  means  to  transfer  a  feeling. 

Provided,  to  be  sure,  he  is  blessed  with  reporters  that 
in  their  turn  have  the  instinct  of  the  artistic  craftsman; 
for  when  reporting  is  true  and  free  from  the  taint  of  ad- 
vertising and  the  business  office  and  allowed  to  deal  accord- 
ing to  its  principles,  it  is  an  admirable  art.  Far  more 
surely  than  the  dramatist  or  the  novelist  the  reporter  can 
hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature,  if  he  be  encouraged  thereto. 
Take  a  typical  newspaper  and  if  it  could  be  freed  of  its 
advertising  and  balance  sheet  influence  and  so  left  pure 
as  a  daily  record  of  life,  we  should  have  the  highest  type 
of  literature.  This  is  not  my  opinion  but  the  deliberate 
judgment  of  excellent  critics,  including  one  so  judicious 
as  Moncure  D.  Conway.  The  difference  between  report- 
ing for  such  a  newspaper  and  reporting  for  the  bargain 

286 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

counter  may  seem  wide^  but  it  lies  not  in  the  art  of  re- 
porting but  in  the  use  to  which  the  art  is  put;  and  in  the 
end  not  even  bargain  counters  may  prevail  against  art. 

The  singular  felicity  befell  me  to  have,  as  city  editor  of 
the  New  York  World  for  three  years,  beginning  with  1894-, 
a  staff  of  reporters  to  whose  worth,  character,  and  skiL 
no  words  of  mine  could  do  justice.  It  is  common  for 
commanders  to  think  well  of  their  forces,  but  what  I  shall 
say  of  the  World's  staff  is  far  beyond  any  tradition  of  that 
kind,  and  shall  consist  chiefly  of  records  that  speak  for 
themselves.  I  believe  it  was  the  greatest  staff  that  ever 
worked  upon  any  newspaper;  certainly  it  contained  the 
greatest  number  of  young  men  aijd  young  women  that 
subsequently  distinguished  themselves  in  letters.  Among 
the  reporters  were  David  Graham  Phillips,  who  afterward 
attained  the  front  rank  among  American  novelists;  Maxi- 
milian Foster,  now  famous  as  a  short  story  writer  and  the 
author  of  widely  read  novels;  Rudolph  Block,  who,  as 
*'  Bruno  Lessing,"  is  the  favorite  writer  of  stories  of  the 
Ghetto;  Alexander  C.  Kenealey,  now  editor  of  the  London 
Mirror  and  the  author  of  two  very  successful  books;  Hart- 
ley Davis,  magazinist,  dramatist,  short  story  writer,  and 
one  of  the  ablest  of  critics;  Roy  L.  McCardle,  known  to 
all  lovers  of  humor;  Samuel  S.  Fontaine,  now  an  acknowl- 
edged authority  on  great  financial  subjects;  Joseph  B. 
Eakins,  who  wrote  "How  Old  Folks  Won  the  Derby"; 
Marie  Manning,  author  of  "Lord  AUington,  Bankrupt,'* 
"  Judith  of  the  Plains,"  and  a  host  of  fascinating  short 
stories;  Anne  O'Hagan,  poet  and  distinguished  short  story 
writer;  Reginald  Foster,  successful  as  a  writer  of  magazine 
articles ;  Olivia  Howard  Dunbar,  a  brilliant  critic  and  essay- 
ist, author  of  **  Pierre  Vidal " ;  Jacob  Dreyfus,  the  un- 
equaled  producer  of  genre  sketches  of  the  east  side;  Wil- 

287 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

liam  O.  Inglis,  whose  travel  sketches  and  articles  are 
familiar  to  all  readers  of  Harper's;  Arthur  Greaves,,  now 
city  editor  of  the  New  York  Times;  Bayard  Veiller^  author 
of  **  Within  the  Law,'*  one  of  the  greatest  plays  of  recent 
years.  Arthur  Brisbane  was  a  special  writer  on  local  topics ; 
Charles  H.  Meltzer  wrote  the  music  criticisms;  E.  F.  Cow- 
ard, the  adapter  of  "  The  Belle's  Stratagem,"  was  the 
dramatic  critic. 

Elsewhere  than  in  the  city  room,  too,  we  were  a  dis- 
tinguished company.  Elizabeth  Jordan,  now  editor  of 
Harper's  Bazaar  and  the  author  of  many  popular  novels, 
was  in  charge  of  the  woman's  page.  Joseph  Altschuler, 
author  of  "  The  Sun  of  Saratoga,"  and  the  best  writer  of 
boy's  books  we  have  had  in  this  generation,  was  a  member 
of  the  staff.  George  Cary  Eggleston  wrote  most  of  the 
editorials.     E.  Z.  Van  Zile  did  the  paragraphing. 

At  the  same  time  the  art  department,  under  the  direction 
of  Charles  Mortimer,  was  likewise  gathering  extraordinary 
material.  Artists,  since  famous  as  great  book  illustrators, 
such  as  George  Kerr,  Harry  Marchand,  W.  O.  Wilson, 
Walter  Bobbett,  August  Weil,  and  Julius  Firemen,  were  on 
the  art  staff  at  this  time,  and  some  of  them  began  as 
illustrators  of  fires,  or  maybe  prize  fights,  under  Papa  Mor- 
timer's kindly  eye,  the  careers  that  have  since  been  so 
brilliant. 

Calling  to  mind  now  the  high  character  of  the  men  and 
women  I  knew  in  journalism,  I  am  moved  to  dissent  in 
this  place  from  a  popular  belief  about  the  craft  in  general. 
In  many  a  mouth  that  speaks  with  little  knowledge  of  these 
matters,  or  with  none,  the  inaccuracy  of  reporters  is  a 
favorite  phrase.  It  is  an  inaccuracy  that  in  almost  every 
instance  can  be  traced,  when  it  exists  at  all,  to  a  commercial 
degradation  of  a  thing  in  itself  good  and  true.     Genuine 

S88 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

reporting  aims  to  reproduce  the  original  event  for  the 
eyes  and  understanding  of  the  reader.  If  the  event  be 
not  worth  the  reproducing  it  does  not  strive  to  create 
imaginary  scenes,  details,  nor  incidents.  The  assertion 
may  be  received  with  incredulity,  but  is  quite  true,  never- 
theless; for  the  reason  that  imaginary  embroideries  are 
never  necessary.  Anything  that  is  worth  writing  about 
in  a  newspaper  has  in  its  veritable  aspects  enough  of 
human  interest,  if  one  will  but  look  upon  it  attentively. 
Superficial  observation,  finding  nothing  that  smites  it  with 
a  bill-hook,  falls  to  faking,  which  is  not  reporting  at  all 
but  mere  laziness  and  slovenliness.  Whether  truth  is 
stranger  than  fiction  I  do  not  pretend  to  say,  but  I  know 
it  is  always  better  than  fiction.  I  remember  now  an  instance 
related  to  me  by  Abraham  Cahan,  the  creator  of  the  great 
Jewish  daily.  Forward,  and  long  a  star  reporter  in  New 
York.  An  old  man  had  committed  suicide;  his  violin 
lay  upon  his  bed.  Faking  reporters  imagined  a  story  of 
an  old  violinist  that  -found  his  fingers  becoming  too  stiff 
to  play  his  beloved  instrument  and  so  killed  himself.  This 
made  what  is  called  a  good  story:  of  the  kind.  Cahan 
rejected  fiction  and  went  patiently  to  discover  the  truth. 
He  learned  that  the  man  was  an  artisan  that  all  his  life 
had  cherished  the  ambition  to  play  the  violin.  He  worked 
and  saved  and  gathering  a  little  competence  set  out  to 
realize  his  ambition.  He  engaged  an  instructor  and  took 
many  lessons  and  then  discovered  that  lie  could  not  learn 
to  play.  That  was  the  real  reason  why  he  had  killed 
himself  and  made  a  story  far  better  than  the  other.  For 
one  thing  it  had  the  subtle  art  values  that  pertain  only 
to  what  is  true.  No  matter  how  clever  the  faking  it  can 
never  command  those  values,  which,  after  all,  are  the  ulti- 
mate goal  of  writing  as  of  painting. 

289 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

After  verjuiced  remarks  about  the  reporters  of  San 
Francisco^  or  some  of  them,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  con- 
cluded that  all  in  all  they  were  good  lads,  more  sinned 
against  than  sinning.  It  is  a  true  word.  Everywhere  the 
reporter  is  the  victim  of  conditions  he  is  powerless  to  affect 
and  of  a  condemnation  he  never  deserved.  Those  that 
have  seen  him  at  his  work  will  need  no  defense  of  him; 
others  I  beg  to  assure  seriously  that  the  genuine  reporter 
is  not  a  prying  person_,  seeking  to  injure  reputations  or 
to  desecrate  privacy.  Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  the  out- 
sider, he  is  most  often  of  rather  unusual  sensibilities;  some- 
times launched,  inwardly  protesting,  upon  a  painful  errand, 
but  never  callous  to  the  consequences  of  publicity;  and  (in 
spite  of  accepted  tradition)  not  often  so  eager  to  get  some- 
thing to  write  that  he  will  readily  accept  lies  as  truth. 
Against  this  latter  monstrous  injustice  I  enter  a  solemn 
protest.  The  history  of  New  York  journalism  contains 
an  interminable  list  of  names  that  refute  it.  Let  me  make 
this  plain.  When  I  was  a  reporter,  a  certain  group  of 
practitioners  of  our  art  was  regarded  by  all  of  us  with  pro- 
found respect.  Day  after  day  as  we  sat  in  the  city  room 
waiting  for  assignments,  we  were  wont  to  discuss  the  rela- 
tive merits  of  the  stories  these  men  had  written  that  day, 
awarding  the  palm  for  conspicuous  excellence.  Amos 
Cummings,  S.  S.  Carvalho,  Julian  Ralph,  John  R.  Spears, 
Ernest  Chamberlain,  W.  J.  Chamberlain,  all  of  the  Sun; 
David  Graham  Phillips,  Arthur  Greaves,  Isaac  D.  White, 
Jonas  Whitley,  of  the  World;  George  Spinney,  W.  J.  K. 
Kenney,  Earl  H.  Berry,  Tracy  Bronson,  of  the  Times; 
James  Clancy,  Thomas  G.  Alvord,  Robert  Hunt  Lyman, 
Harry  Brown,  of  the  Herald;  Ervin  Wardman  of  the 
Tribune;  George  Foster  of  the  Star,  were  (at  different 
times)   the  reporters  upon  whom  younger  men  looked  as 

290 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

upon  models.  But  note,  please,  that  each  of  these  men  was 
as  far  above  faking  as  he  was  above  personal  dishonor  in 
his  relations  with  other  men;  each  had  the  faith  in  the  dig- 
nity and  worth  of  his  art  that  I  have  tried  to  describe  here ; 
each  was  successful;  each  rose  subsequently  to  high  posi- 
tions. I  am  compelled  to  regard  that  fact  as  conclusive  and 
utterly  refuting  the  traditional  conception  that  does  so  much 
injustice  to  a  useful  profession. 

Many  instances  of  that  injustice  will  come  at  once  to 
the  mind  of  every  experienced  newspaper  man.  I  shall  cite 
but  one,  and  it  will  be  one  that  to  the  judicious  will  seem, 
I  think,  conclusive. 

After  all,  the  greatest  source  of  actual  inaccuracy  in  the 
average  newspaper  is  the  thing,  chiefly  intangible  but  al- 
ways powerful,  that  is  called  the  office  policy,  or  general 
steering  chart  for  the  guidance  of  the  executives,  great  and 
small.  Of  this  the  palpable  part,  in  my  time,  consisted 
of  a  list  of  "  Don'ts  *'  that  the  night  city  editor  kept  in  a 
drawer  of  his  desk,  handy  for  reference.  It  contained  the 
names  of  persons  that  were  not  to  be  mentioned  in  print, 
of  persons  of  whom  nothing  unpleasant  was  to  be  said,  of 
institutions  or  corporations  that  were  to  be  treated  tenderly, 
and  of  causes  to  which  the  newspaper  was  committed. 

But  far  more  important  than  these  was  the  general  un- 
derstanding, based  in  part  upon  the  tone  of  the  editorials, 
in  part  upon  verbal  messages,  and  more  rarely  upon  written 
instructions,  as  to  what  the  proprietary  powers  behind  the 
machine  really  desired.  A  philosopher  might  reflect  with 
some  amusement  that  these  intimations,  when  they  reached 
the  men  that  pulled  upon  the  ropes,  took  always  the  shape 
of  moral  obligations.  Thus,  if  a  citizen  were  trying  to 
lead  some  movement  of  civic  reform  and  the  ultimate  powers 
were,  for  whatsoever  reason,  opposed  to  the  movement,  the 

291 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

word  would  be  passed  along  that  the  reformer  was  a 
**  skate  **  and  unworthy  of  confidence  and  therefore  our 
newspaper  "  took  no  stock  in  him."  If  a  strike  occurred 
on  the  street  railroads  and  the  ultimate  powers  were  on 
the  side  of  the  companies  (as  they  usually  were  for  a  rea- 
son sufficient  to  themselves)  the  word  would  be  that  the 
leaders  of  the  strike  were  dishonest  and  grafters  and  we 
were  opposed  to  such  men  because  they  deceived  honest 
labor.  If  a  corporation  were  under  fire  and  the  ultimate 
powers  sympathized  with  it,  the  word  would  be  that  the 
men  attacking  the  corporation  were  of  bad  character  and 
actuated  by  merely  selfish  aims.  If  a  public  man  were  in 
disfavor  with  us  it  was  because  of  his  moral  failings,  not 
revealed  by  the  chart-makers  but  assumed  to  be  well  under- 
stood by  all  the  wise.  "  We  don*t  go  much  on  him,  you 
know/*  would  be  the  fullest  extent  of  the  comment,  but 
it  would  be  ample  to  secure  the  desired  results;  it  indi- 
cated "  the  policy."  At  all  times  we  were  required  to 
treat  tenderly  certain  great  advertisers,  but  the  reason 
was  not  alleged  to  be  that  they  were  advertisers  but  only 
that  they  were  friends  of  ours.  The  time  came  when  if 
an  elevator  fell  in  a  department  store  that  was  "  a  friend 
of  ours  "  we  omitted  all  mention  of  the  fact,  no  matter 
what  might  have  been  the  casualties.  In  such  a  case  the 
chart-makers  could  hardly  be  blamed  for  insisting  upon 
the  attitude  of  friendliness.  Because  of  a  chance  sentence 
in  a  reporter's  story  the  great  dry  goods  house  of  O'Neill 
withdrew  its  advertising  from  the  Herald  and  remained  out 
for  several  years. 

The  results  of  the  policy-chart  would  be  a  paragraph 
added,  a  phrase  turned,  a  point  emphasized,  another  point 
obscured,  a  certain  meaning  injected  into  a  headline,  a 
certain  impression  upon  the  mind  of  the  reader  not  jus- 

292 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

tified  by  the  facts;  and  to  anyone  that  happened  to  know 
the  truth  an  indelible  conclusion  of  inaccuracy. 

For  all  of  this  the  reporter  was  blamed  by  the  unin- 
formed public:  for  all  of  it  he  had  no  more  responsibility 
than  the  smallest  cog  wheel  in  one  of  the  presses. 

This  is  no  essay  upon  the  principles  of  journalism,  but 
while  I  linger  on  agreeable  memories,  let  me  continue  to 
insist  that,  free  from  commercial  interference  and  left  to 
itself,  reporting  is  nevertheless  a  high  form  of  art.  And 
to  that  end  I  now  cite  a  conclusive  illustration.  Take  inter- 
viewing. To  be  a  good  interviewer  demands  a  knowledge 
and  skill  beyond  the  ready  belief  of  a  layman.  The  funda- 
mentals of  successful  interviewing  go  down  to  the  roots 
of  human  nature ;  its  complex  difficulties  can  be  solved  only 
by  those  that  are  willing  to  study  life  with  enthusiastic 
and  unflagging  zeal. 

To  mention  but  one  point,  few  of  us  are  aware  of  the 
fact  that  no  conversation  is  ever  represented  accurately 
whether  in  novels,  short  stories,  or  newspapers.  It  cannot 
be.  In  actual  life  human  beings  audibly  transfer  intelli- 
gence with  words,  grunts,  ejaculations,  incomplete  sentences, 
ragged  phrases,  ungrammatical  and  wandering  speech,  and 
a  vast  multiplication  of  needless  words,  supplemented  with 
signs,  gestures,  and  facial  expressions  that  often  contain 
the  greater  significance.  If  you  could  see  an  exact  steno- 
graphic reproduction  of  any  conversation,  even  among 
highly  educated  persons,  you  would  be  astonished  to  ob- 
serve through  what  Saharas  of  words  trickle  what  stream- 
lets of  ideas.  We  have,  in  fact,  two  languages,  spoken 
language  and  written  language,  and  not  without  disaster 
can  one  attempt  to  confuse  them. 

A  newspaper  cannot  reproduce  exactly  a  conversation 
with  a  man  it  is  interviewing  because  in  the  first  place  it 

293 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

has  no  room  for  such  a  flood  of  verbiage,  and  in  the  next 
place  it  would  be  in  print  uninteresting  even  if  intelligible. 
Every  word  that  is  pertinent  and  valuable  the  interviewed 
one  will  wrap  in  an  integument  of  a  thousand  words  of 
bosh.  An  interviewer  that  knows  his  business  will  under- 
stand this.  He  knows  also  that  to  get  his  man  into  the 
exact  mood  wherein  he  will  be  interesting  and  profitable 
requires  tact,  patience,  and  often  a  delicate  maneuvering. 
In  this  process  will  be  uttered  thousands  of  words  of  not 
the  slightest  use  to  the  paper  or  its  readers.  The  master 
interviewer  must  seize  in  his  mind  the  exact  instant  at 
which  his  subject  began  to  say  something  worth  while,  and 
he  must  carry  in  his  memory  that  utterance  and  all  others 
of  similar  value.  In  his  memory,  because  to  make  a  visible 
memorandum  or  to  exhibit  a  note  book  is  fatal  to  successful 
interviewing.  No  man  ever  talks  easily  and  naturally,  re- 
vealing his  true  self  and  true  thought,  before  the  discon- 
certing battery  of  paper  and  pencil.  Carrying  thus  every 
salient  point  in  his  mind  the  interviewer  must  reveal  in 
perhaps  a  thousand  words  of  true  and  characteristic  phrases 
the  vital  essence  of  a  conversation  that  consumed,  let  us 
say,  an  hour.  To  do  that  and  do  it  well  taxes  the  best 
skiU  of  the  best  trained  mind. 

The  real  art  of  interviewing  is  not  known  outside  of  the 
United  States  and  even  here  is  falling  into  disuse.  English 
interviewers,  who  in  my  experience  have  been  painstaking 
and  painsgiving  persons,  either  take  the  whole  conversation 
in  shorthand  or  make  elaborate  notes  of  the  points.  Either 
process  is  deadly.  In  the  first  case,  since  no  newspaper  can 
print  the  whole  thing,  three-fourths  of  what  you  say  is 
cut  out  and  always  contains  your  only  remarks  that  are 
fairly  intelligible.  In  the  other  case  you  are  treated  the 
next  morning  to  such  convincing  exposition  of  your  im- 

294 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

becility  as  drives  you  to  despair.  But  the  master  inter- 
viewer stands  by  the  side  of  the  verbal  torrent,  snaring  the 
occasional  utterance  that  is  worth  while  and  snaring  it 
whole.  These,  one  after  another,  he  stores.  Then  at  the 
end  of  an  agreeable  conversation  he  goes  away  and  puts 
together  the  good  things  you  have  said  and  omits  the 
trivial.  And  these  good  things  he  dresses  in  the  manner 
of  written  speech,  which  is  the  only  manner  you  yourself 
will  tolerate  when  you  come  to  read  your  thoughts  in  type. 
For  type  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world. 

In  all  this  the  interviewer  that  has  mastered  his  art  is 
never  exposed  to  the  danger  of  inaccuracy,  but  under 
certain  conditions  he  may  be  exposed  to  the  charge  of  it. 
Some  public  men  have  a  habit  of  denying  an  interview 
whenever  they  find  adverse  comment  upon  its  utterances. 
Blame  the  reporter:  he  cannot  defend  himself.  Others  de- 
liberately use  the  interview  as  a  means  of  testing  public 
sentiment;  if  the  views  advanced  are  well  received,  good: 
if  not,  the  vile  interviewer  misquoted  me.  It  is  a  cowardly 
trick,  but  common.  We  have  had  a  governor  of  the  state 
of  New  York,  and  one  over  much  given  to  moral  platitudes, 
whose  habit  of  denying  interviews  was  so  fixed  upon  him 
that  the  Associated  Press  would  never  receive  any  statement 
from  him  except  in  the  presence  of  two  of  its  representa- 
tives. Yet  for  all  these  perils  I  can  cite  master  inter- 
viewers that  in  long  careers  have  never  known  the  accuracy 
of  one  of  their  interviews  to  be  questioned. 

You  see  the  requirement  is  for  care,  deliberation,  study, 
and  the  conscience  of  the  artist;  in  interviewing  and  in 
all  other  phases  of  true  reporting.  The  common  conception 
of  the  reporter  as  a  harum-scarum,  irresponsible  person  with 
soiled  cuffs  and  the  lees  of  last  night's  drunk  still  upon 
him  is  a  caricature  as  gross  as  the  European  cartoonist's 

295 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

conception  of  the  typical  American.  Every  profession  is 
entitled  to  be  judged  by  its  best.  I  have  known  scores  of 
reporters  in  my  time  so  scrupulous  about  the  least  inac- 
curacy, so  careful  of  their  walk  and  habit,  so  convinced  in 
every  way  of  the  theory  I  am  advancing,  and  so  unwaver- 
ing in  practicing  it  that  in  view  of  the  work  they  actually 
performed  the  caricature  I  have  mentioned  becomes  pre- 
posterous. These  men  were  artists ;  true  reporting  is  always 
an  art.  Reporting  for  the  sake  of  producing  scare  heads 
to  sell  newspapers  and  get  advertising  is  not  an  art  but 
a  species  of  blackmail.  Real  reporting  demands  concen- 
tration, devotion,  incessant  vigilance,  a  high  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility, with  the  faculties  of  analysis  and  synthesis 
in  constant  play ;  the  other  kind  one  can  do  with  one's  feet. 
In  my  time,  at  least,  the  man  that  rose  to  the  front  rank 
of  the  profession  was  one  that  gave  to  his  assignments  such 
study  as  the  conscientious  lawyer  gives  to  a  difficult  law 
case;  the  haphazard  man  never  got  anywhere.  The  con- 
scientious man  kept  his  mind  alert  for  every  point;  the 
haphazard  man  took  what  fell  in  his  way. 

And  now  I  think  of  two  or  three  incidents  from  a  mass 
in  my  collection  that  illustrate  concisely  the  qualities  that 
make  good  reporting.  One  of  the  best  reporters  I  have 
known  was  Charles  W.  Tyler  of  the  old  New  York  Sun 
staff  in  the  famous  days  when  John  Bogart  was  city  editor. 
He  was  once  assigned  to  a  puzzling  murder  mystery  at 
Hackettstown,  New  Jersey.  The  body  of  a  young  woman 
had  been  found  in  a  field  just  outside  of  the  town;  she 
had  been  strangled,  but  evidently  not  on  the  spot;  the  body 
had  been  dragged  to  the  place  where  it  lay.  She  had  been 
a  resident  of  the  town,  quite  well  known,  and  respected. 
No  clew  was  to  be  deduced  from  her  associates,  habits,  or 
antecedents,  and  she  had  not  been  murdered  for  robbery. 

9.9Q 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

A  reward  was  offered  for  the  arrest  of  the  murderer  and 
some  experienced  detectives  took  up  the  case;  every  New 
York  newspaper  sent  a  reporter.  Tyler  worked  alone ;  the 
others,  following  a  custom  that  was  gradually  growing  up, 
worked  in  company.  Several  days  passed  without  light 
upon  the  mystery.  The  newspapers  and  the  detectives  gave 
up  the  case.  On  the  last  day  Tyler  came  back  to  New 
York  with  one  of  the  detectives.  They  walked  together 
from  the  ferry  house  to  Park  Row,  where  the  Sun  office 
was.  There  Tyler  bade  his  companion  good-by,  whipped 
around  the  corner  back  to  the  ferry  house,  and  took  the 
next  train  to  Hackettstown.  Two  days  later  the  Sun  came 
out  with  the  solution  of  the  mystery. 

While  he  walked  and  talked  and  rode  with  the  others, 
still  in  a  corner  of  his  mind  Tyler  had  been  studying  his 
case.  The  murdered  girl's  dress  at  the  back  had  shown 
some  minute  splinters  of  wood.  These  had  been  assumed 
to  be  torn  from  the  rails  of  the  fence  through  which  the 
body  had  been  dragged.  Did  they  really  come  from  that 
fence.'*  In  the  murdered  girl's  hair  had  been  found  minute 
traces  of  whitish  dust.  This  had  been  assumed  to  be  dust 
from  the  road.  It  seemed  to  Tyler  like  the  dust  of  anthra- 
cite ashes.  No  one  knew  where  the  murder  had  been  com- 
mitted. Anthracite  ashes :  wooden  splinters.  Was  the  place 
a  cellar — a  cellar  of  a  house  that  had  a  wooden  floor,  a 
house  where  anthracite  coal  was  used? 

This  was  but  a  feeble  clew;  in  every  Hackettstown  house 
anthracite  coal  was  used,  and  the  trifle  of  dust  in  the  hair 
might  not  be  ashes  at  all.  But  studying  his  case  as  he  rode 
he  recalled  one  of  those  mental  photographs  that  we  take 
daily  and  never  heed.  He  had  seen  anthracite  ashes  re- 
moved that  day  from  a  Hackettstown  house;  from  a  large 
building   a   few  hundred   feet  from  the   spot   where   the 

297 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

body  had  been  found,  a  building  occupied  by  a  famous 
boarding  school  for  girls.  Inasmuch  as  the  only  apparent 
plan  of  determining  his  questions  was  to  examine  cellar 
floors  he  determined  to  begin  by  visiting  this  school. 

On  a  pretense  he  got  the  janitor  to  take  him  into  the 
basement,  which  contained  the  heating  apparatus  of  the 
establishment  and  had  a  separate  entrance  from  the  campus. 
He  found  that  part  of  the  floor  was  of  rough  planks;  in  a 
corner  were  piled  ashes  from  the  furnace.  The  planked 
part  of  the  floor,  he  noticed,  was  between  the  ash  heap 
and  the  door  that  gave  upon  the  campus. 

Tyler  cultivated  the  janitor  and  studied  him.  When 
chance  offered  he  got  splinters  from  the  plank  floor  and 
dust  from  the  ash  heap.  The  girFs  clothing  was  at  the 
police  station.  He  took  his  splinters  there;  also  his  dust 
of  ashes.  The  splinters  were  identical  with  the  minute 
fragments  that  still  adhered  to  the  dress;  about  the  collar 
he  found  traces  of  ashes. 

He  now  returned  to  the  fact  that  the  murdered  girl  had 
been  acquainted  with  the  janitor  and  discovered  that  she 
had  even  visited  him  in  the  basement.  He  went  back  to 
the  school  and  took  another  minute  observation  of  the 
janitor,  now  putting  him  upon  the  grill.  Thence  he  went 
away  with  evidence  to  his  mind  conclusive,  and  wrote  one 
of  the  most  skillfully  constructed  stories  I  have  ever  read. 
On  its  appearance  the  janitor  was  arrested.  Subsequently 
he  confessed. 

This  was  a  mystery  solved  by  reason,  diligence,  and 
study.  The  next  instance  I  select  shows  those  qualities 
and  likewise  reveals  something  of  the  resources  of  the 
modern  newspaper.  On  a  day  in  the  early  spring  of  1892 
a  well-dressed  man  of  courteous  manners  and  carrying  in 
one  hand  a  satchel,  entered  the  office  of  Russell  Sage  and 

298 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

quietly  asked  for  an  interview  with  that  eccentric  genius. 
When  he  came  face  to  face  with  Mr.  Sage  he  genially  ex- 
plained that  the  satchel  contained  a  large  quantity  of  dyna- 
mite and  unless  Mr.  Sage  should  give  him  instantly  one 
million  dollars  he  would  throw  the  satchel  upon  the  floor 
and  blow  up  the  building.  Mr.  Sage  edged  himself  behind 
one  of  his  clerks  and  refused.  The  visitor  cast  the  satchel 
upon  the  floor  and  the  terrific  explosion  that  followed  blew 
the  office  to  fragments,  rocked  the  building,  shook  Broad- 
way, broke  two  ancient  tombstones  in  Trinity  church  yard 
on  the  other  side  of  Rector  Street,  and  resounded  in  the 
Herald  office  half  a  mile  away,  where  I  sat  pasting  together 
my  last  week's  string. 

When  the  smoke  and  dust  cleared  away  it  was  seen  that 
the  strange  visitor  had  also  annihilated  himself.  Nothing 
could  be  found  of  him  except  his  head,  his  shoes,  some 
shocking  indications  of  his  body,  and  minute  pieces  of  his 
clothing.  The  mystery  was  his  identity.  Mr.  Sage  (when 
he  recovered),  his  surviving  clerks,  and  many  other  persons 
looked  upon  that  dreadful  head  and  could  give  no  clew  as 
to  the  man;  all  of  Superintendent  Byrnes's  detectives,  in- 
cluding those  clever  men  that  watched  Wall  Street,  were 
equally  at  fault.  Who  was  this  well-dressed,  polite  stranger 
that  had  caused  this  boundless  sensation  by  attacking  and 
(nearly  killing)  one  of  the  richest  men  in  the  world? 

Isaac  D.  White,  of  the  New  York  World,  the  accomplished 
reporter  to  whom  I  have  before  referred  in  these  annals, 
secured  a  bit  of  the  clothing,  two  inches  long,  having  upon 
it  a  trousers  button  that  bore  the  single  word  **  Brooks." 
On  a  blind  chance  he  undertook  to  find  a  tailor  named 
"  Brooks.'*  In  a  few  minutes  correspondents  and  reporters 
of  the  World  in  fifty  cities  were  searching  directories  and 
compiling  all  the  tailor  Brookses.     Those  in  New  York, 

9.99 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

Brooklyn^  Jersey  City^  and  Newark  having  been  quickly 
tried  out  to  no  result,  Mr.  White  started  for  Boston,  whence 
was  reported  a  tailor  **  Brooks  **  that  had  a  large  business 
with  well-to-do  men.  Mr.  White  put  his  torn  fragment  of 
clothing  before  this  Boston  Brooks;  the  tailor  at  a  glance 
identified  the  number  of  the  goods,  and  turned  to  his  records ; 
and  the  next  day  the  World  swept  the  journalistic  field  bare 
with  an  exclusive  identification  of  the  man  with  the  satchel. 
He  had  been  a  Boston  broker  and  had  gone  insane. 

The  reporter's  work  demands  also  presence  of  mind  and 
readiness  of  wit,  of  which  truth  the  next  two  incidents 
are  illustrations.  When  the  Cunard  line  steamer  Oregon 
was  sunk  mysteriously  off  Fire  Island,  the  Lloyd  steamer 
Ems  was  close  behind  her  inbound  and  took  off  all  her 
passengers.  News  of  the  accident  was  telegraphed  up  from 
Fire  Island  light,  but  the  work  of  transferring  the  passen- 
gers took  hours  and  as  day  closed  before  it  was  done,  the 
captain  of  the  Ems  decided  to  anchor  where  he  was  for 
the  night  and  to  come  up  to  the  city  the  next  day.  The 
morning  newspapers  had  combined  to  hire  a  tug  to  cover 
the  story.  When  the  tug  arrived  alongside  the  captain 
of  the  Ems  allowed  all  the  reporters  to  come  aboard,  but 
when  they  had  obtained  the  facts  and  interviewed  the  pas- 
sengers they  suddenly  found  to  their  amazement  that  the 
captain  would  not  allow  them  to  return  to  their  tug.  To 
all  arguments,  prayers,  pleadings,  and  explanations  he  was 
deaf,  and  to  make  sure  that  his  orders  should  be  obeyed 
he  assigned  to  each  reporter  two  brawny  sailor  sons  of 
the  Fatherland  with  instructions  to  put  any  reporter  in 
irons  that  tried  to  leave  the  steamer. 

Attempts  to  dodge  these  encumbrances  having  failed  and 
this  being  years  before  Marconi,  the  reporters  were  now 
in  a  desperate  situation.     Their  newspapers  had  but  the 

300 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

bare  fact  that  one  of  the  most  famous  steamers  afloat  had 
been  sunk  at  the  doors  of  the  city,  but  they  had  not  a  detail 
nor  a  name  and  at  this  rate  would  assuredly  get  none. 

The  New  York  Times  on  this  occasion  was  represented 
by  an  excellent  reporter  named  Thomas  Fielders.  He  went 
to  the  upper  deck  and  surveyed  the  distance  to  the  roll- 
ing tug  below.  Then  he  unbuttoned  his  coat  and  swiftly 
climbed  upon  the  rail.  His  two  sailor  guards,  with  a  glad 
cry,  grabbed  at  him  and  seized  the  coat.  Fielders  threw  his 
arms  up,  the  coat  slipped  over  his  head  and  came  free,  and 
he  shot  down  to  the  deck  of  the  tug  where,  by  good  hap, 
he  landed  on  his  feet.  Then  he  called  up  to  his  associates 
to  throw  down  their  copy.  They  let  go  with  all  they  had 
or  could  write,  and  Fielders  took  the  tug  up  to  New  York, 
arriving  in  time  to  supply  every  morning  newspaper. 

This  was  a  case  where  a  reporter  violated  the  traditional 
rule  of  the  craft  that  every  newspaper  man  should  serve 
only  the  journal  that  employed  him  and  seek  in  all  ways 
to  surpass  and  embarrass  that  journars  rivals.  Fielders 
put  the  interest  of  the  community  above  the  rules  of  the 
competitive  game  and  the  community  got  the  news  to  which 
it  was  entitled. 

Courage,  also,  the  reporter  must  have  as  well  as  ready  wit. 

In  the  early  spring  of  1884  international  affairs  were 
enlivened  by  an  acute  war  scare  between  Russia  and  Great 
Britain.  It  was  the  old  nightmare  of  the  Russian  advance 
upon  the  northern  outposts  of  the  British  Empire  in  India, 
but  this  time  it  was  made  to  the  world  fairly  plausible. 
Newspapers  grew  hysterical  at  the  reported  facts;  books 
were  written  to  prove  that  Russia  was  really  at  the  gates  of 
Herat  and  elsewhere  to  the  detriment  of  the  British;  and 
the  American  wheat  market  soared  at  what  seemed  to  be 
the  certain  prospect  of  war. 

801 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

While  the  excitement  was  greatest  the  British  cruiser 
Calypso  (or  some  such  name;  classical,  I  know)  came  into 
New  York  Bay  and  anchored  off  Tompkinsville,  Staten 
Island.  The  next  day  we  were  astounded  to  learn  that  a 
Russian  cruiser  had  slipped  in  after  her  and  was  anchored 
in  the  Horseshoe,  inside  the  Hook. 

This  looked  like  business  and  the  New  York  newspapers 
on  their  menus  served  it  daily  with  the  proper  relish. 
Captain  Paul  Boyton,  who  was  a  good  Irishman  as  well 
as  a  good  inventor,  had  patented  a  life-saving  rubber  suit 
for  accidents  at  sea  and  it  occurred  to  him  that  the  occasion 
was  excellent  for  hurling  defiance  at  perfidious  Albion, 
ridiculing  the  British  navy,  advertising  his  invention,  and 
having  some  needed  diversion,  for  the  winter  had  been  dull. 
So  he  communicated  in  confidence  to  every  city  editor  a 
rare  design.  In  his  rubber  suit  he  would  float  down  to  the 
Calypso  at  night,  under  the  very  eyes  of  her  watch  he 
would  fasten  an  imitation  torpedo  to  her  hull,  and  slip 
away  without  being  seen;  thus  showing  how  easily  in 
war  time  the  whole  British  navy  could  be  blown  at  the 
moon. 

The  city  editors  were  in  no  way  adverse  to  a  story  of 
such  dimensions  and  interest  and  each  morning  paper  sent 
a  reporter  upon  the  excursion.  Having  thus  assembled  his 
party  in  the  early  evening,  the  agreeable  captain  took  it 
down  to  Tompkinsville,  where  it  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Deputy  Sheriff  MuUins  of  Richmond  County,  a  sturdy 
Irishman  and  strong  partisan  of  the  captain's.  About  mid- 
night Boyton  and  the  reporters  got  into  a  row-boat  and 
pushed  off  for  the  British  navy.  It  appears  that  Mr. 
Mullins  scented  trouble  or  believed  in  being  at  all  times 
wary  of  the  wily  Briton :  at  least  he  declared  that  he  would 
be  on  guard  at  the  pier  head  until  all  were  safely  returned. 

302 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

It  was  a  dark  night,  and  at  first  they  could  but  guess 
which  of  the  vessels  lying  in  the  stream  was  the  Calypso. 
They  rowed  up,  for  it  was  ebb  tide,  and  then  drifted  down 
until  Boyton  thought  they  were  in  a  favorable  position. 
Then  he  adjusted  his  suit,  got  his  imitation  torpedo,  and 
slipped  overboard,  ordering  the  boatman  to  keep  the  boat 
about  where  it  was.  They  could  now  plainly  make  out 
the  Calypso;  they  lay  not  more  than  five  hundred  feet 
directly  above  her,  and  they  could  even  discern  some  of 
the  guns  pointed  straight  at  them  with  a  business-like 
and  highly  disagreeable  suggestion.  They  could  also  hear 
the  armed  watch  on  deck,  a  circumstance  that  added  nothing 
to  their  joy  considering  the  fact  that  if  one  of  the  watch 
discovered  Boyton  playing  any  tricks  about  the  hull,  the 
first  thing  would  be  to  shoot  and  the  next  to  ask  questions, 
the  result  of  which  sequel  of  events  might  be  some  con- 
spicuous vacancies  in  the  staffs  of  New  York's  foremost 
newspapers. 

Boyton  drifted  silently  down  until  he  came  close  to  the 
cruiser,  when  he  discovered  that  she  had  her  torpedo 
netting  down,  which  was  a  very  unusual  thing  in  a  friendly 
port.  Here  was  an  obstacle  he  had  not  counted  upon.  He 
slipped  along  until  he  found  a  place  where  he  could  get 
through  the  netting.  Then  he  made  his  way  to  the  bow 
and  successfully  attached  his  fake  torpedo  to  the  ram. 

As  he  was  climbing  through  the  netting  on  his  way  back 
the  Celt  within  him  surged  high,  and  in  the  name  of  dear 
old  Erin  he  flung  scorn  upon  the  British  oppressor. 

**  Hey,  you  British  lubbers !  '*  he  yelled  aloud,  "  look 
what's  on  your  bow!  Look  at  the  torpedo  there  that  can 
blow  you  to  hell!  Great  seamen  you  are,  aren't  you? 
Look  at  your  bow !     Look  at  your  bow !  " 

If  any  part  of  the  watch  was  asleep  it  must  have  been 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

awakened  effectually  by  this  challenge.  There  was  the 
sound  of  many  heavy  feet  running  hastily  along  the  deck, 
followed  by  words  of  command,  and  the  craning  of  necks 
over  the  bulwarks,  and  then  hails  as  the  row-boat  was  dis- 
covered. 

Boyton  had  a  paddle  as  part  of  his  outfit  and  swiftly 
made  his  way  back  to  the  row-boat.  The  boatman  bent 
to  the  oars  and  they  started  shoreward. 

They  had  made  but  a  short  distance  when  a  cutter  was 
put  overboard  from  the  cruiser,  and  came  flying  over  the 
water  after  them.  It  was  filled  with  armed  men,  and  a 
gruff  voice  ordered  them  to  stop  rowing,  which,  I  may 
observe,  they  did  without  waiting  to  be  told  twice. 

The  cutter  ranged  up  alongside,  a  squad  of  marines 
and  an  officer  leaped  aboard  and  took  them  all  prisoners, 
and  the  next  thing  they  knew  they  were  dragged  aboard 
the  Calypso  and  arraigned  before  the  officer  in  charge,  who 
was  a  young  lieutenant.  The  captain  was  asleep  in  his 
stateroom. 

The  lieutenant  ordered  them  to  be  ironed  and  locked 
up  until  the  captain  could  deal  with  the  case. 

Among  the  reporters  was  James  Creelman,  whose  cour- 
age, presence  of  mind,  and  readiness  of  wit  have  been 
proved  since  in  many  trying  emergencies,  including  those 
of  a  score  of  battlefields.  Mr.  Creelman  now  stood  forward 
and  in  a  manner  perfectly  cool  but  determined  and  aggres- 
sive said: 

**  This  thing  has  gone  far  enough.  I  am  an  American 
citizen.  I  demand  to  know  by  what  right  I  am  seized 
in  American  waters  by  British  sailors  and  brought  on  board 
a  British  ship.  I  demand  the  instant  release  of  myself 
and  my  party  and  I  can  assure  you  that  the  matter  will 
not  end  even  at  that." 

304 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

The  young  lieutenant  was  greatly  taken  aback  by  this 
outburst.  He  was  inexperienced  and  not  well  informed 
about  international  matters.  In  a  much  milder  tone  he 
asked  Creelman  to  explain  what  he  meant  by  dodging  sus- 
piciously in  a  row-boat  about  Her  Majesty's  war  vessel 
and  shouting  forth  challenges  about  a  torpedo. 

Mr.  Creelman  promptly  declined  to  explain  anything. 

**  I  demand  my  instant  release.  You  have  committed  an 
outrage  for  which  there  is  no  warrant  or  excuse.  I  am  an 
American  citizen  in  the  pursuit-  of  my  regular  and  lawful 
calling  and  you  have  not  the  slightest  right  to  interfere 
with  me.  Let  me  tell  you  that  I  represent  the  New  York 
Herald,  this  gentleman  the  New  York  World,  this  the 
New  York  Sun,  this  the  New  York  Times,  this  the  New 
York  Tribune,  this  the  New  York  Star.  And  as  surely 
as  you  stand  there  these  newspapers  to-day  will  unite  in 
a  formal  complaint  to  the  Secretary  of  State  against  your 
action  and  a  demand  for  an  apology  from  the  government 
of  Great  Britain." 

I  think  it  was  the  last  touch  that  finished  the  young 
lieutenant.  Anyway,  he  released  the  party  with  an  expres- 
sion of  regret.  They  got  into  the  row-boat  and  started 
for  Tompkinsville. 

Misgivings  must  have  seized  the  lieutenant  or  he  awoke 
the  captain  to  tell  him  what  had  happened  or  the  captain 
came  on  deck  of  his  own  accord.  At  all  events,  the  Boytons 
had  not  made  the  shore  when  they  were  aware  of  another 
cutter  from  the  cruiser  rowing  rapidly  toward  them  with 
armed  men  and  another  gruff  voice  began  to  order  them 
to  halt. 

By  this  time  daylight  was  beginning  to  break.  They 
were  within  two  hundred  feet  of  the  pier,  and  there  upon 
its   end  they   saw   Deputy   Sheriff  MuUins  of   Richmond 

305 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

County,  standing  stern  and  watchful  at  his  post,  gathering 
the  points  of  the  situation. 

The  cutter  was  coming  on  swiftly,  while  with  but  one 
pair  of  oars  the  Boy  tons  could  make  slow  progress.  It 
looked  as  if  the  cutter  would  sweep  alongside  before  they 
could  make  the  pier. 

And  then  was  revealed  to  all  men  the  greatness  and  the 
worth  of  MuUins.  He  drew  a  revolver  from  his  pocket, 
he  strode  to  the  extreme  end  of  the  pier,  he  pointed  the 
weapon  at  the  advancing  cutter,  and  then  he  spake  in  tones 
of  thunder  and  to  this  effect: 

"  Halt !  I  am  the  deputy  sheriff  of  Richmond  County, 
State  of  New  York.  You  are  now  within  the  jurisdiction 
of  that  county.  In  the  name  of  Richmond  County,  State 
of  New  York,  United  States  of  America,  I  command  you 
to  stop,  and  if  you  pull  another  stroke  on  them  oars  I'll 
blow  you  full  of  holes." 

The  officer  in  charge  of  the  cutter  ordered  his  men  to 
stop  rowing.  Then  he  took  a  good,  considerate  observation 
of  MuUins  and  the  shore,  and  ordered  his  crew  to  pull  back 
to  the  cruiser. 

So  the  reporters  got  safely  to  their  offices  and  wrote  the 
story  about  the  imitation  torpedo  and  it  was  cabled  to 
Europe,  where  it  caused  measureless  disgust  in  the  naval 
circles  of  Great  Britain. 

Before  long  the  Calypso  pulled  up  her  anchors  and 
went  to  Halifax,  which  is  in  British  waters.  And  there 
a  Court  of  Inquiry  was  held  about  the  young  lieutenant 
that  released  the  reporters  and  I  regret  to  say  that  he 
was  cashiered  from  the  service. 

But  these  incidents,  you  will  say,  partake  more  of  the 
vicissitudes  of  a  life  of  rude  action  than  of  anything  con- 
nected with  literature. 

306 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

Then  let  me  say  that  for  each  of  these  I  could  cite  ten 
instances  where  the  work  of  the  reporter  was  strictly  within 
the  literary  limits.     Let  me  mention  an  example. 

For  several  years  in  New  York  City  it  was  a  fashion 
among  the  newspapers  to  make  much  of  Thanksgiving  Day 
as  an  occasion  of  general  good  will  and  kindliness.  On 
Thanksgiving  Day_,  1896^  I  sent  David  Graham  Phillips^ 
then  a  reporter  on  the  World  staE,to  the  Montefiore  Home  for 
Incurables  to  write  a  story  about  Thanksgiving  Day  among 
the  patients  there.  You  will  see  that  this  was  at  once  a 
bold  and  a  delicate  assignment  and  could  be  handled  by  none 
but  an  artist  of  skilly  knowledge^  and  sympathy.  For  men 
and  women  condemned  to  death  by  incurable  maladies^ — 
what  call  had  they  to  be  thankful^  or  how  could  this  day 
of  general  rejoicing  mean  to  them  anything  but  mockery? 
Mr.  Phillips  took  the  assignment  with  a  full  understanding 
of  the  difficulties  and  wrote  of  it  a  story  that  was  a  classic. 
It  had  for  its  text  Morituri  Salutamus_,  and  yet  for  all  its 
somber  material  he  made  of  it  a  thing  that  was  sweet  and 
gracious  if  thoughtful,  and  tempered  the  high  note  of  the 
rest  of  the  page  with  the  needed  suggestion  of  life  as  it 
really  is. 

The  next  morning  I  was  coming  to  the  office  on  a  bridge 
train  and  the  man  that  sat  next  to  me  was  reading  Phillips's 
story.  He  hung  upon  it  with  intense  interest  to  the  close, 
laid  the  paper  upon  his  knee,  tapped  it  with  his  forefinger, 
and  turning  to  me,  said  in  words  that  brought  back  to 
me  my  ragamuffin  of  olden  days: 

**  By  !     That  is   not  newspaper  writing ;   that  is 

literature !  " 

It  was  no  less.  Life  as  it  is  and  portrayed  with  vividness 
and  conviction  to  the  reader — what  better  literature?  And 
hardly  a  day  passed  without  some  such  contribution  to  the 

S07 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

world's  delight  or  its  knowledge.  An  old  landmark  hotel 
that  stood  in  Frankfort  Street  below  Park  Row  was  to 
be  torn  down.  I  sent  Rudolph  Block  ("  Bruno  Lessing  ") 
to  write  of  it.  He  went  about  and  found  that  an  old  lady 
had  lived  thirty  years  in  one  room  in  that  hotel.  She  had 
not  a  relative  on  earth  and  the  very  window  casements 
were  dear  to  her.  If  Block's  story  had  appeared  elsewhere 
than  in  a  newspaper  it  would  have  been  hailed  as  a  notable 
achievement  in  style  and  construction.  A  man  died  in 
the  alcoholic  ward  of  Bellevue  Hospital.  Ernest  McCready 
found  in  his  life  the  materials  for  a  marvelous  story  of 
weird  psychology.  Julian  Ralph  went  to  a  National  Con- 
vention. In  five  hundred  words  he  managed  to  make  every 
reader  feel  the  conflicting  passions  that  raged  there.  Tyler 
accompanied  to  the  doors  of  Sing  Sing  a  once  honored  city 
officer  convicted  of  bribe  taking.  You  heard  the  steel  gates 
banging  upon  a  ruined  life. 

So  from  these  multi-colored  strands  the  woven  product 
comes  forth  the  next  morning.  Life,  real  life,  pictured 
by  artists — to  put  it  together  day  by  day,  what  task  could 
have  been  more  fascinating?  And  yet  it  was  even  in  my 
time  a  stage  of  newspaper  development  already  beginning 
to  decay.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  period  of  "  good 
stories "  should  go  down  before  the  many  assaults  that 
were  made  upon  it,  mostly  in  the  way  of  evolution.  The 
telephone,  for  instance,  saved  time  and  helped  the  gather- 
ing of  news,  but  it  abolished  much  of  the  old  style  of 
reporters*  art.  One  man  now  went  out  upon  a  story  and 
another  man  sat  in  the  office  and  from  a  brief  outline 
jumbled  over  a  telephone,  wrote  the  narrative.  The  ablest 
genius  on  earth  could  not  produce  "  good  stories  "  in  that 
way.  The  typewriter  greatly  improved  the  legibility  of 
copy  and  hastened  its  production,  but  few  men  can  compose 

308 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

on  the  typewriter  in  terse^  compact,  nervous,  vigorous  Eng-» 
lish;  the  facility  afforded  by  the  machine  is  too  great. 
The  change  from  the  space  system  to  salaries  effected 
economies,  but  it  lost  us  the  best  in  the  old  style  of  news- 
paper writing.  The  introduction  of  the  half-tone  and  the 
use  of  the  camera  made  the  newspapers  of  a  more  striking 
interest,  but  they  rendered  the  finest  phase  of  the  reporters' 
art  comparatively  unnecessary. 

But  the  greatest  of  all  the  transforming  forces  at  work 
was  the  rise  of  the  department  store,  added  to  the  fact  that 
because  of  a  blind  and  stupid  competition  the  newspapers 
had  come  to  a  condition  in  which  they  were  manufactured 
at  a  loss,  since  the  sales  price  did  not  cover  the  cost  of 
the  white  paper  in  each  average  copy.  Under  this  condi- 
tion advertising  in  great  quantities  became  absolutely  indis- 
pensable to  the  paper's  existence.  Much  and  very  strange 
discussion  is  sometimes  made  as  to  whether  newspapers  are 
controlled  by  their  advertisements.  On  this  nothing  more 
need  be  said  than  to  refer  to  this  pivotal  and  indisputable 
fact.  In  the  very  nature  of  existing  conditions  they  are 
and  must  be  so  controlled.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  will  nor 
of  design  nor  of  preference ;  it  is  a  sheer  matter  of  economic 
fact  resulting  from  economic  necessity,  always  the  deter- 
mining factor  of  human  life.  Those  that  dispute  the  control 
must  seem  foolish  to  all  that  understand  economic  funda- 
mentals, and  at  least  as  foolish  to  those  that  like  my- 
self have  sat  long  on  the  inside  of  the  machine,  have 
seen  the  strings  at  work,  and  helped  lustily  to  pull 
them. 

As  the  steadily  developing  department  store  became  more 
and  more  the  dispenser  of  the  great  advertising  that  the 
newspaper  must  have  or  perish,  the  newspaper  began  to 
develop    as    an    appendage    of    the    department    store, 

S09 


These  Shifting  Scenes 

which  is  its  present  stage  of  evolution.  And  as  the  de- 
partment store  tends  always  to  become  greater  and  more 
important  and  to  be  drawn  into  more  intimate  relations 
with  the  sources  from  which  it  gets  its  capital^  the  whole 
process  is  clearly  one  of  unification^  simplification^  and 
combination  in  which  the  newspaper,  as  an  appendage  of 
the  department  store,  will  move  with  the  rest  and  in  the 
same  direction. 

But  this  does  not  mean  that  we  are  to  have  worse  news- 
papers; it  seems  to  me  that  in  the  end  we  shall  have  much 
better.  Agreeable  as  it  is  now  to  recall  the  days  of  the 
good  story,  and  the  highest  achievement  of  the  reporting 
art  in  its  old  form,  the  fact  remains  that  the  world  has 
no  need  of  good  newspaper  stories;  it  has  no  need  of 
**  exclusives  ** ;  it  has  no  need  of  newspapers  trying  to  sur- 
pass and  outwit  one  another;  it  has  no  need  of  the  art 
that  here  I  have  been  celebrating.  It  has  need  of  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter.  More  and  more  the  department 
store  is  becoming  the  great  reservoir  of  our  supplies  of  the 
things  we  need.  Its  close  alliance  with  the  newspaper  is 
not,  in  the  last  analysis,  a  subject  for  regret.  Gone  are  the 
good  old  days,  and  probably  that  is  the  best  thing  we 
can  say  about  them.  Much  better  days  are  to  come.  That 
a  newspaper  should  be  published  as  an  accessory  of  the 
augmenting  department  store,  source  of  our  indispensable 
supplies,  is  repugnant  to  romance  but  not  to  common  sense. 
Out  of  this  condition  will  come  in  time  the  ideal  news- 
paper, which  can  be  produced  only  as  a  communal  enter- 
prise; which  will  be  published  for  information  and  not  for 
profit;  which  will  not  attempt  to  combine  the  two  desirable 
but  properly  distinct  functions  of  telling  us  how  goes  the 
progress  of  the  world  and  where  to  get  hams.  Meanwhile, 
as  the  fact  of  to-day's  stage  in  that  progression  is  becoming 

SIO 


The  Art  of  Reporting 

well  recognized  by  the  public^  whatever  harm  may  be 
implied  is  but  a  fleeting  matter;  whether  we  like  it  or  not, 
it  is  a  change  destined  and  inevitable,,  having  its  due  place 
in  evolution  and  therefore  in  the  end  working  good  to  man- 
kind. 


311 


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